The Family Reunited in the Garden

A retelling based on The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, volume 1, by Adib Taherzadeh. The account of the flood comes from A Flame of Fire by A. Q. Faizi. Words in quotation marks are quoted from those books.

In the spring of 1863 word spread through Baghdád that Bahá'u'lláh was to leave the city for Constantinople. Taherzadeh writes that large numbers wished to see Him and pay their last tributes, and His house was too small to receive them. Najíb Páshá, one of the notables of Baghdád, placed his garden-park, the Najíbíyyih, at His disposal. It lay on the outskirts of the city, across the river from His house. His followers named it the Garden of Riḍván, the Garden of Paradise.

On the afternoon of 22 April people of every class crowded the streets and rooftops along His way to the river. Before He crossed, Bahá'u'lláh said to His companions:

O My companions, I entrust to your keeping this city of Baghdad, 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.

He was ferried across with His amanuensis and three of His sons: 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who was eighteen; Mírzá Mihdí, the Purest Branch, who was fourteen; and a younger son of ten. As He entered the Garden the afternoon call to prayer was being raised from the mosque. Taherzadeh writes that Bahá'u'lláh "appeared in the utmost joy, walking majestically in its avenues lined with flowers and trees." There He declared to His companions that He was the One Whose advent the Báb had proclaimed.

His wife, Ásíyih Khánum, His daughter, Bahíyyih Khánum, and the rest of the household were still at the house in Baghdád. A. Q. Faizi writes that "on that same day the river overflowed and only on the ninth day was it possible for His family to join Him in the Garden."

This family had lived through His imprisonment in Ṭihrán, the loss of their home, the winter journey to Baghdád and ten years of exile there. On the ninth day, 30 April 1863, they crossed to the Garden. Taherzadeh calls it the day "when all His family joined Him and rejoiced at His Declaration." Bahá'ís keep it as one of the three Holy Days of Riḍván, with the first day and the twelfth, 3 May, when Bahá'u'lláh left the Garden to begin the journey to Constantinople.

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, volume 1, by Adib Taherzadeh.

Taherzadeh, A.. (1974). *The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh (volume 1)*. George Ronald.