The House at the Foot of the Mountain

*A retelling based on **Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf**, a compilation from the Bahá'í World Centre, with details from **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi, **The Priceless Pearl** by Rúhíyyih Khánum and **Messages to the Bahá'í World**. Words in quotation marks are from those books.*

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The Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel was itself raised in the face of long opposition. In God Passes By, Shoghi Effendi lists the obstacles 'Abdu'l-Bahá had to overcome: long negotiations with the owner of the building-site, who for a long time refused to sell; "the exorbitant price at first demanded for the opening of a road leading to that site"; the objections of officials, whose suspicions He Himself had to allay with repeated explanations; and His own prolonged and enforced absence from Haifa.

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"Every stone of that building, every stone of the road leading to it," He was many a time heard to remark, "I have with infinite tears and at tremendous cost, raised and placed in position." An eye-witness recorded another of His remarks: "One night I was so hemmed in by My anxieties that I had no other recourse than to recite and repeat over and over again a prayer of the Báb which I had in My possession, the recital of which greatly calmed Me.

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The next morning the owner of the plot himself came to Me, apologized and begged Me to purchase his property."

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After the Shrine of the Báb had been built on Mount Carmel, 'Abdu'l-Bahá wished to open a path that would lead directly from the Shrine to the German Avenue below. Time and again, the Greatest Holy Leaf recalled, He referred to this project and explained how it should be built.

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Many obstacles stood in the way. At the foot of the mountain, where the path would begin, stood a house belonging to one of the German settlers, and its owner had turned down every offer to buy it. The German community had adopted a rule for the property within their settlement: no tract of land and no house there was to be sold to outsiders, however much was offered. They kept the rule strictly, and it had become "an insurmountable barrier."

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The path would also cross land belonging to several different people. Some of them could not sell because of legal problems. Others would not, because they saw that the path was meant only to give access to the Bahá'í Shrine, and reasoned that sooner or later the Bahá'ís would have to pay an enormous sum for the land. "Thus immersed in the sea of visionary hopes and dreams they categorically refused to sell." And so, she wrote, "days and nights, and months and years passed by."

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Then, in her words, "the hand of divine power wrought a change in the whole situation." Not long afterwards the territory was occupied by the Government of Great Britain, and the local authorities, acting on their own judgement, decided that the house at the foot of the mountain should not stand there. They demolished it, cleared the site and carried away the stones.

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The Municipal Engineer then prepared a design for the path, emphasizing that the opening of a path to the Bahá'í Shrine was imperative. The design was put before 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Who approved it and expressed His satisfaction and appreciation to the engineer. Later, "with the aid of divine confirmations," enough land was bought from the remaining tracts through which the path passed.

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Rúhíyyih Khánum, writing many years later, records that the first of the Bahá'í community's many dealings with the municipal engineers of Haifa came in 'Abdu'l-Bahá's own day, when a Dr Ciffrin submitted to Him a design for "a monumental staircase and cypress avenue" leading from the old Templar Colony at the foot of Mount Carmel up to the Shrine. The Master approved the scheme, granted land for it, and headed the list of subscribers to the "Bab's Monumental Stairway," as the project was called, with a gift of 100 pounds.

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Bahíyyih Khánum told all this in a letter dated 23 September 1922, written to a believer in Tihrán after 'Abdu'l-Bahá's passing. "You are no doubt familiar with this matter," she wrote, and then told it from the beginning. In the change that came, she saw the truth of these words fulfilled:

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"He shall establish His ascendancy over His dominion as He pleaseth."

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'Abdu'l-Bahá had planned a series of terraces from the old German Colony up to the Shrine, and He had begun developing the first of them. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian, set himself over the years to finish them. On 26 November 1932 he wrote to Edward Keith-Roach, the District Commissioner, that he was taking "the necessary preliminary steps for the extension of the terraces, forming an integral part of the Shrine, and leading to the German Colony." He had approached the Municipal Engineer and found him "very sympathetic and favourable."

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In March 1951 he cabled news, to be announced to the friends of East and West, that two more terraces had been completed. They ended a scheme begun a quarter of a century before, "designed to fulfill Master's cherished desire to connect directly, through series of nine terraces, the Báb's Sepulcher with Templar Colony at foot of Mount Carmel." In the same cable he looked ahead to the day, "as envisaged by 'Abdu'l-Bahá," that would see "pilgrim kings ascending this route to pay humble tribute to Martyr-Herald of Faith of Bahá'u'lláh."

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*This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see **Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf**, letter 58; **God Passes By**, chapter 18; and **The Priceless Pearl**, chapters 3 and 12.*

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