April 26, 2017

1978: Resurgence of persecution of Baha’is

The resurging persecution of the Bahá'ís of Iran, the country in which the Bahá'í Faith originated, began in 1978 and came into full force following the fall of the Shah on 17 January 1979 and the declaration of the Islamic Republic on 1 April 1979. 
(Adapted from footnotes in ‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963-1986’)

April 20, 2017

Consequences of rejecting the Message of God brought by Bahá’u’lláh: --> Sultán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz -- the “throne of tyranny”

…the fate that has overtaken those kings, ministers and ecclesiastics, in the East as well as in the West, who have, at various stages of Bahá’u’lláh’s ministry, either deliberately persecuted His Cause, or have neglected to heed the warnings He had uttered, or have failed in their manifest duty to respond to His summons or to accord Him and His message the treatment they deserved, particular attention…

Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz, who with Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh was the author of the calamities heaped upon Bahá’u’lláh, and was himself responsible for three decrees of banishment against the Prophet; who had been stigmatized, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, as occupying the “throne of tyranny,” and whose fall had been prophesied in the Lawḥ-i-Fu’ád, was deposed in consequence of a palace revolution, was condemned by a fatvá (sentence) of the Muftí in his own capital, was four days later assassinated (1876), and was succeeded by a nephew who was declared to be an imbecile. The war of 1877–78 emancipated eleven million people from the Turkish yoke; Adrianople was occupied by the Russian forces; the empire itself was dissolved as a result of the war of 1914–18; the Sultanate was abolished; a republic was proclaimed; and a rulership that had endured above six centuries was ended. 
- Shoghi Effendi  (‘God Passes By’)

April 10, 2017

The fortress of Chihriq

The fortress of Chihriq where the Báb was imprisoned for almost all of the last two years of His life is located in north-western Iran in the region of Urumiyyih of the province of Azerbaijan.