The Nightingales of Riḍván

A retelling based on God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi, which quotes the eyewitness account of Nabíl-i-A'ẓam. Words in quotation marks are from that book.

In April 1863, on the eve of His banishment from Baghdád to Constantinople, Bahá'u'lláh moved to the Najíbíyyih Garden outside the city, which His followers came to call the Garden of Riḍván. During the twelve days He spent there He declared His Mission to His companions. Shoghi Effendi writes that His arrival in the garden marks the commencement of "the holiest and most significant of all Bahá'í festivals."

Little is known of the Declaration itself. The words Bahá'u'lláh spoke, the manner of the Declaration and the identity of those who heard Him are, in Shoghi Effendi's words, "shrouded in an obscurity which future historians will find it difficult to penetrate." One of the very few authentic records of those days is a short account by Nabíl-i-A'ẓam, who was in the garden and who later wrote the history of the Faith's early years.

Nabíl remembered the roses. "Every day," he wrote, "ere the hour of dawn, the gardeners would pick the roses which lined the four avenues of the garden, and would pile them in the center of the floor of His blessed tent. So great would be the heap that when His companions gathered to drink their morning tea in His presence, they would be unable to see each other across it." Each morning Bahá'u'lláh gave these roses with His own hands to those He sent from His presence, to be delivered on His behalf to His Arab and Persian friends in the city.

He also remembered one night. It was the ninth night of the waxing moon, and Nabíl was among those keeping watch beside the tent. Towards midnight he saw Bahá'u'lláh come out, pass the places where some of the companions lay asleep, and walk up and down the moonlit avenues of the garden. The nightingales were singing so loudly that only those near Him could hear His voice clearly. Pausing in one of the avenues, He said:

"Consider these nightingales. So great is their love for these roses, that sleepless from dusk till dawn, they warble their melodies and commune with burning passion with the object of their adoration. How then can those who claim to be afire with the rose-like beauty of the Beloved choose to sleep?"

For three nights in a row Nabíl kept watch around the tent. Each time he passed the couch where Bahá'u'lláh lay, he found Him awake, and each day, from morning until evening, he saw Him speaking with the stream of visitors who came out from Baghdád. "Not once," Nabíl wrote, "could I discover in the words He spoke any trace of dissimulation."

Bahá'u'lláh left the garden at noon on 3 May 1863 to begin the journey to Constantinople. The twelve days He spent there are kept by Bahá'ís as the Festival of Riḍván.

This is a retelling. For the full account, see chapter IX of God Passes By by Shoghi Effendi.

Effendi, S.. (1944). *God Passes By*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/god-passes-by/