The Garden of Najíb Páshá: First Day of Riḍván

After much negotiation, at the request of the Persian Government, an order was issued by the Turkish Government summoning Bahá’u’lláh to Constantinople. On receipt of this news His followers were in consternation. They besieged the house of their beloved Leader to such an extent that the family encamped in the Garden of Najíb Páshá outside the town for twelve days, while the caravan was being prepared for the long journey.

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It was during these twelve days — April 22 to May 3, 1863, exactly nineteen years after the Báb’s Declaration in Shíráz — that Bahá’u’lláh announced to several of His followers the glad tidings that He was the One whose coming had been foretold by the Báb: the Chosen of God, the Promised One of all the Prophets.

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The Garden where this memorable Declaration took place has become known to Bahá’ís as the *Garden of Riḍván*, meaning *Paradise*, and the days Bahá’u’lláh spent there are commemorated each year in the *Feast of Riḍván*, held annually on the anniversary of those twelve days.

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The First Day of Riḍván — the afternoon Bahá’u’lláh entered the Garden — is the most holy of the Bahá’í festivals. The character of those days, as recorded by His followers and by later historians, is striking. As Esslemont writes:

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> During those days Bahá'u'lláh, instead of being sad or depressed, > showed the greatest joy, dignity and power. His followers became > happy and enthusiastic, and great crowds came to pay their respects > to Him. All the notables of Baghdád, even the Governor himself, came > to honor the departing prisoner.

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What outwardly was an exile became inwardly a coronation. The Garden, on the bank of the Tigris, hung with roses, was for those twelve days a place of arrival rather than departure — the place where, after nineteen years of patient hiddenness, the Promised One spoke aloud.

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