The Family Arrives in the Garden: Ninth Day of Riḍván

When the order from Constantinople arrived in early 1863 summoning Bahá’u’lláh to the Ottoman capital, His followers besieged His house in Baghdád, unwilling to be parted from Him. To restore order, the family moved out of the city to a wooded garden across the river Tigris — the Garden of Najíb Páshá, soon to be remembered as the Garden of Riḍván.

Bahá’u’lláh entered the Garden on the afternoon of April 22, 1863. The river that day was running high. His sons accompanied Him, but His wife, the Greatest Holy Leaf, and the rest of the household could not cross to join Him until nine days later, on April 29. That arrival — the day the Holy Family was reunited with Him in the Garden — is the Ninth Day of Riḍván.

Esslemont describes the spirit of those twelve days as Bahá’u’lláh prepared to depart Baghdád for ever:

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.

In Bahá’í tradition the Ninth Day is treasured for two intertwined graces: it is the day Bahá’u’lláh’s declaration of His mission deepened and continued, and it is the day His earthly family — those who had shared the Síyáh-Chál, the journeys, the long hidden years — were restored to His side beneath the roses of Najíb Páshá’s garden.

The twelve-day festival of Riḍván, of which the Ninth Day is the midpoint, is the most holy of the Bahá’í festivals. From the eve of that arrival, the household tasted, for nine more days, what it was to live in the open declaration of the Promised One they already knew.

Source: J. E. Esslemont, Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era (1923). Public domain text from Project Gutenberg eBook #19241.

Esslemont, J. E.. (1923). *Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era*. George Allen & Unwin. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19241/pg19241-images.html