Joy, Dignity and Power in the Garden

*A retelling based on **Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era** by J. E. Esslemont (chapter 3), with a passage from Nabíl quoted in Shoghi Effendi's **God Passes By**. Words in quotation marks are from those books.*

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In 1863, after much negotiation and at the request of the Persian government, the Turkish government issued an order summoning Bahá'u'lláh from Baghdád to Constantinople. Esslemont writes that when the news came, His followers "were in consternation." They crowded His house so constantly, he writes, that the family encamped in the Garden of Najíb Páshá, outside the town, for twelve days, from 22 April to 3 May 1863, while the caravan for the long journey was made ready.

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It was during those twelve days, nineteen years after the Báb's Declaration, that Bahá'u'lláh announced to several of His followers that He was the One whose coming the Báb had foretold. The garden became known to Bahá'ís as the Garden of Riḍván, and the twelve days are commemorated every year in the Festival of Riḍván.

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Of Bahá'u'lláh's bearing in those days 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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Nabíl, who kept watch beside Bahá'u'lláh's tent, left a similar picture of those days, quoted in God Passes By. For three nights, he said, each time he passed the couch where Bahá'u'lláh lay he found Him awake, "and every day, from morn till eventide, I would see Him ceaselessly engaged in conversing with the stream of visitors who kept flowing in from Baghdád."

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When the twelve days were over, Bahá'u'lláh set out for Constantinople with members of His family and twenty-six disciples, on a journey that lasted between three and four months.

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*This is a retelling. For the full account, see **Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era** by J. E. Esslemont, chapter 3.*

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