The Great Curve on the Mountain

A retelling for children, based on The Priceless Pearl by Rúḥíyyih Khánum.

Mount Carmel rises above the sea in the city of Haifa. Bahá'u'lláh Himself visited this mountain. On its slope 'Abdu'l-Bahá built a Shrine, and there the remains of the Báb were laid to rest. But much of the mountain was still a bare, rocky hillside.

Shoghi Effendi was the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith. His wife, Rúḥíyyih Khánum, tells us that almost every day he was in Haifa he went up to the Shrine. He looked carefully at the empty slopes around it, and little by little, year after year, he turned them into gardens. Sometimes he had the ground measured by surveyors, but very often he marked out the curves and the long lines himself.

Near the Shrine of the Báb, Shoghi Effendi laid to rest the Greatest Holy Leaf, the sister of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Later he brought her mother and her brother to rest beside her. Above their resting-places he drew a great curving line across the mountain, shaped like a gigantic bow. He called it the arc. Rúḥíyyih Khánum tells us he studied its lines very carefully on the ground.

Along that arc, he explained, buildings would one day stand, all in a matching style. They would be the seats of the institutions that guide the worldwide Bahá'í community, among them the Universal House of Justice.

First the land had to be bought, piece by piece, over many years, with the gifts of Bahá'ís all over the world. Then the first building was put up: the International Archives, a building with tall columns, made to hold precious things from Bahá'í history.

The Archives was finished in 1957. That same year the Guardian told the Bahá'ís that the plan for the arc had been carried out. A few months later he passed away. He never saw the other buildings. They were built many years later, along the lines he had drawn on the mountain.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Designing the Arc on Mount Carmel".

Khánum, R.. (1969). *The Priceless Pearl*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust.