The Garden of Najíbíyyih on the Banks of the Tigris

*A retelling based on **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 1** by Adib Taherzadeh (pp. 259–62), with details from Shoghi Effendi's **God Passes By**, chapters 8 and 9. Words in quotation marks are from those books.*

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In the spring of 1863, at the urging of the Persian government, a letter came from Constantinople inviting Bahá'u'lláh to leave Baghdád, where He had lived for ten years, and travel to the Ottoman capital. As the news spread through the city and the towns nearby, so many people wished to see Him and pay their last respects that His house proved too small.

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The garden-park of Najíb Páshá, known as the Najíbíyyih, on the outskirts of Baghdád across the river from His house, was placed at His disposal. His followers came to call it the Garden of Riḍván, the Garden of Paradise.

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On the afternoon of 22 April 1863, thirty-one days after Naw-Rúz, Bahá'u'lláh left His house for the last time. Men and women of every walk of life, rich and poor, officials and tradesmen, and above all His companions, crowded the streets and rooftops along His way to the river, weeping. Before He crossed, He spoke to the companions gathered around Him:

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> O My companions, I entrust to your keeping this city of Baghdád, in the state > ye now behold it, when from the eyes of friends and strangers alike, crowding > its housetops, its streets and markets, tears like the rain of spring are > flowing down, and I depart. With you it now rests to watch lest your deeds and > conduct dim the flame of love that gloweth within the breasts of its > inhabitants.

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He was ferried across the Tigris with His sons, among them 'Abdu'l-Bahá, then eighteen, and Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, then fourteen, and with His amanuensis. The call to afternoon prayer had just been raised, and the words "Alláh-u-Akbar" (God is the Greatest) sounded through the garden as He entered it. Taherzadeh writes that Bahá'u'lláh "appeared in the utmost joy, walking majestically in its avenues lined with flowers and trees."

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It was the season of roses. Nabíl, quoted in God Passes By, remembered that every day before dawn the gardeners picked the roses lining the four avenues of the garden and piled them on the floor of Bahá'u'lláh's tent, so high that His companions, gathered for their morning tea, could not see one another across the heap. Bahá'u'lláh gave all these roses, with His own hands, to those He sent into the city each morning, to be delivered on His behalf to His Arab and Persian friends.

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'Abdu'l-Bahá described how, on His arrival in the garden, Bahá'u'lláh declared His station to the companions who were present and announced the Festival of Riḍván. Taherzadeh notes that although Bahá'u'lláh had alluded to His station during the years in 'Iráq, it was in this garden that He announced Himself as the One whose advent the Báb had proclaimed.

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He stayed in the garden twelve days. On the ninth day His family joined Him, and at noon on the twelfth, 3 May 1863, He rode out on the first stage of the journey to Constantinople. The first, ninth and twelfth days of Riḍván are kept by Bahá'ís as Holy Days.

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*This is a retelling. For the full account, see **The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 1** by Adib Taherzadeh and **God Passes By** by Shoghi Effendi.*

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