Declaration of Baha’s Mission at The Garden of Ridvan
Shoghi Effendi’s Account of the Events at Ridvan
2. Declaration of Baha’s Mission at The Garden of Ridvan
2.6 Shoghi Effendi’s Account of the Events at Ridvan
As for Shoghi Effendi in god passes by, he says:
(P.149): Baha “left for the last time” his house in Baghdad, “reached the banks of the river, and was ferried across to the Najibiyya garden, situated on the opposite shore. …. The Muezzin had just raised the afternoon call to prayer when Baha entered the Najibiyya garden, when he tarried for twelve days before his final departure from the city on his way to Istanbul.
(P. 151, ibid): “The arrival of Baha in the Najibiyya garden subsequently designated by his followers the garden of Ridvan, signifies the festival commemorating the declaration in his mission to his companions … the “set time of the concealment” was fulfilled …. The Lord of the kingdom, Jesus Christ returned in the glory of the Father, was about to ascend in His throne, and assume the sceptre of a world-embracing, indestructible sovereignty…. (P. 152) … and finally, his adoption of the Taj (the felt head dress), on the day of his departure from his most holy home, all proclaimed unmistakably his imminent assumption of the prophetic office and of his open leadership of the community of the BÂB’s followers.”
After his introduction Shoghi Effendi comes to the point and states:
(P.153): “Of the exact circumstances attending that epoch-making declaration we re, but scantly informed. The words Baha actually uttered on that occasion, the manner of his declaration, the reaction it produced, its impact on Mirza Yahya [Subh-i-Azal], the identity of those who were privileges to hear him, are shrouded in an obscurity which future historians will find it difficult to penetrate. The fragmentary description left to posterity by his chronicle Nabil in one of the very few authentic records we posses of the memorable days he spent in that garden.”
“Every day,” Nabil has related, “ere the hour of down, the gardeners would pick the roses which lined the four avenues of the garden, and would pile them on the floor of his blessed tent. So great would be the heap that when his companions gathered to drink the morning tea in his presence, they would be unable to see each other across it. All these roses Baha would, with his own hands, entrust to those whom he dismissed from his presence every morning to be delivered, on his behalf, to his Arab and Persian friends in that city.”
The Dawn-Breakers, Nabil’s Narrative or “Chronicle was begun in 1888 [in Acre], when he [i.e. Nabil] had the personal assistance of Mirza Musa, the brother of Baha.
[Mirza Musa was surnamed Kalim (interlocutor) because he talked with god, Baha]. It was finished in about a year and a half, and parts of the manuscript were reviewed and approved, some by Baha and others by Abdul-Baha [Sir Abbas Effendi].
The complete work carries the history of the movement up to the death of Baha in 1892. The first half of this narrative, closing with the expulsion of Bah from Iran, is contained in the present volume.”
Shoghi Effendi’s introduction to the Dawn-Breakers, Nabil’s Narrative, P. xxxvii
It is strange indeed that Nabil in the second half of his Narrative from which Shoghi Effendi quotes in god passes by instead of entertaining his readers to spiritual food in the way of Baha’s utterances on that historic occasion in the garden of Ridvan, speaks of ‘the roses picked by the gardeners and piled on the floor of his blessed tent,” for distribution by Baha.
The exiles arrived in Istanbul on “August 16, 1863 (Rabi-i-Awal 1, 1280).” The official appointed by the government to entertain them was Shamsi Beg “(god passes by, p. 157).
“What now remained to be achieved, pp. 158-159, ibid, “was the proclamation in the city of Edirne, of that same mission,” to be followed by the writing of the Aqdas in Acre.