The Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí

In the closing chapters of the fourth volume of *The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh*, Adib Taherzadeh treats the events of late May 1892 — the brief illness, the ascension, and the funeral of Bahá'u'lláh in the mansion of Bahjí near 'Akká.

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Bahá'u'lláh had been resident at Bahjí, in increasingly relaxed conditions of confinement, since 1879. The mansion itself was a substantial building rented for the household from a local landowner. The Ottoman authorities, in the later years of the Master's life, had effectively abandoned the technical conditions of His exile. He moved freely within the Bahjí estate, received visitors without hindrance, and conducted the affairs of the Cause as a man of acknowledged spiritual standing in the local community.

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The brief illness that ended His earthly life began in the spring of 1892. Taherzadeh records the available chronology. By mid-May Bahá'u'lláh was visibly unwell. The Holy Family gathered around Him. The visiting believers who happened to be in the area at the time were summoned to the mansion.

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He passed at dawn on 29 May 1892. His final words, preserved by those present, included the brief testimony that He was about to be reunited with *the Supreme Companion* — the language of the spiritual homecoming that runs through many of His later Tablets.

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The ascension was felt, by those present, as the closing of a long-anticipated event. Bahá'u'lláh had been preparing the Holy Family and the close circle of believers for some years for the imminence of His departure. The *Kitáb-i-'Ahd* — the *Book of the Covenant* — had been written and signed in the years preceding, designating 'Abdu'l-Bahá by name as the Centre of the Covenant after the Father's passing.

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The Master, on the morning of the ascension, assumed at once the position the *Kitáb-i-'Ahd* had specified. He gathered the Holy Family. He communicated the news, by cable and by letter, to the small Bahá'í communities then scattered across Persia, Egypt, India, Burma, and the few emerging Western centres. He oversaw the funeral arrangements.

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The funeral procession from Bahjí to the small chamber prepared for the burial — a few hundred yards from the mansion — drew a substantial gathering of the surrounding non-Bahá'í population in addition to the resident Bahá'ís. Taherzadeh records that local notables of the Akká-Haifa region attended in considerable numbers, paying their respects to a man whom even the non-Bahá'í community had come to recognise as a figure of singular spiritual distinction.

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The chamber where Bahá'u'lláh was laid is, in present Bahá'í practice, the holiest spot on earth — the *Qiblih*, the point of adoration, toward which Bahá'í believers turn in their daily obligatory prayers. The small surrounding garden of Bahjí is among the principal sites of Bahá'í pilgrimage. The mansion itself is preserved as the place of the closing months of the prophetic ministry.

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The closing sentence of Taherzadeh's narrative is direct. *The day of direct revelation had ended; the day of the unfolding had begun.* The four-decade ministry of Bahá'u'lláh was complete. The thirty-year ministry of 'Abdu'l-Bahá was beginning. The Cause was about to enter the next chapter of its unfolding.

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*Paraphrased from The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 4 — Mazra'ih and Bahjí 1877-92 (Adib Taherzadeh, George Ronald, 1987); see original for full text.*

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