Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh: 'Let not your hearts be perturbed'
This year, the Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh, is observed on 28 May (13 ‘Azamat). This precious Holy Day commemorates the passing of the Blessed Beauty, who left this earthly realm in the early hours of the morning 132 years ago in 1892 at the Mansion of Bahjí. That evening, he was laid to rest in a house adjacent to the Mansion. Bahá'u'lláh was seventy-five years old, having lived a remarkable life filled with both heroic and harrowing events. His life was marked by extraordinary trials, including being a prisoner for 40 years, enduring torture, and living in exile. This solemn and reflective Holy Day marks the anniversary of His passing and ascension to the spiritual realm and is commemorated at 3:00 am. As Bahá'ís, we honour this day by refraining from work, and with prayers, readings, and gatherings at the hour of His ascension, reflect on Bahá'u'lláh's life, teachings, and enduring influence on the life of humanity for the next 500,000 years.
Shared below is an extract by Bahá'u'lláh from His Most Holy Book and an account of his ascension.
Extract from the Kitáb-i-Aqdas by Bahá'u'lláh
““Let not your hearts be perturbed, O people, when the glory of My Presence is withdrawn, and the ocean of My utterance is stilled.”
”
Say: Let not your hearts be perturbed, O people, when the glory of My Presence is withdrawn, and the ocean of My utterance is stilled. In My presence amongst you there is a wisdom, and in My absence there is yet another, inscrutable to all but God, the Incomparable, the All-Knowing. Verily, We behold you from Our realm of glory, and will aid whosoever will arise for the triumph of Our Cause with the hosts of the Concourse on high and a company of Our favored angels.
O peoples of the earth! God, the Eternal Truth, is My witness that streams of fresh and soft-flowing waters have gushed from the rocks through the sweetness of the words uttered by your Lord, the Unconstrained; and still ye slumber. Cast away that which ye possess, and, on the wings of detachment, soar beyond all created things. Thus biddeth you the Lord of creation, the movement of Whose Pen hath revolutionized the soul of mankind.
Know ye from what heights your Lord, the All-Glorious, is calling? Think ye that ye have recognized the Pen wherewith your Lord, the Lord of all names, commandeth you? Nay, by My life! Did ye but know it, ye would renounce the world, and would hasten with your whole hearts to the presence of the Well-Beloved. Your spirits would be so transported by His Word as to throw into commotion the Greater World—how much more this small and petty one! Thus have the showers of My bounty been poured down from the heaven of My loving-kindness, as a token of My grace, that ye may be of the thankful.
(The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá’u’lláh)
Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh, an account from ‘Days to Remember’
Already nine months before His ascension Bahá’u’lláh, as attested by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, had voiced His desire to depart from this world. From that time onward it became increasingly evident, from the tone of His remarks to those who attained His presence, that the close of His earthly life was approaching, though He refrained from mentioning it openly to anyone. On the night preceding the eleventh of Shavval 1309 A.H., (May 8, 1892) He contracted a slight fever, which, though it mounted the following day, soon after subsided. He continued to grant interviews to certain of the friends and pilgrims, but it soon became evident that He was not well. His fever returned in a more acute form than before, His general condition grew steadily worse, complications ensued which at last culminated in His ascension, at the hour of dawn, on the 2nd of Dhi'l-Qa'dih 1309 A.H. (May 29, 1892), eight hours after sunset, in the 75th year of His age. His spirit, at long last released from the toils of a life crowded with tribulations, had winged its flight to His “other dominions”, dominions “whereon the eyes of the people of names have never fallen”, and to which the “Luminous Maid”, “clad in white”, had bidden Him hasten, as described by Himself in the Lawh-i-Ru'yá (Tablet of the Vision), revealed nineteen years previously, on the anniversary of the birth of His Forerunner.
Six days before He passed away He summoned to His presence, as He lay in bed leaning against one of His sons, the entire company of believers, including several pilgrims, who had assembled in the Mansion, for what proved to be their last audience with Him, “I am well pleased with you all” He gently and affectionately addressed the weeping crowd that gathered about Him. “Ye have rendered many services, and been very assiduous in your labors. Ye have come here every morning and every evening. May God assist you to remain united. May He aid you to exalt the Cause of the Lord of being.” To the women, including members of His own family, gathered at His bedside, He addressed similar words of encouragement, definitely assuring them that in a document entrusted by Him to the Most Great Branch He had commended them all to His care.
The news of His ascension was instantly communicated to Sultan 'Abdu'I-Hamid in a telegram which began with the words "the Sun of Bahá has set" and in which the monarch was advised of the intention of interring the sacred remains within the precincts of the Mansion, an arrangement to which he readily assented. Bahá’u’lláh was accordingly laid to rest in the northernmost room of the house which served as a dwelling-place for His son-in-law, the most northerly of the three houses lying to the west of, and adjacent to, the Mansion. His interment took place shortly after sunset, on the very day of His ascension. The inconsolable Nabil, who had had the privilege of a private audience with Bahá’u’lláh during the days of His illness; whom 'Abdu'l-Bahá had chosen to select those passages which constitute the text of the Tablet of Visitation now recited in the Most Holy Tomb; and who, in his uncontrollable grief, drowned himself in the sea shortly after the passing of his Beloved, thus describes the agony of those days: “Methinks, the spiritual commotion set up in the world of dust had caused all the worlds of God to tremble. . . My inner and outer tongue are powerless to portray the condition we were in . . . In the midst of the prevailing confusion a multitude of the inhabitants of 'Akka and of the neighboring villages, that had thronged the fields surrounding the Mansion, could be seen weeping, beating upon their heads, and crying aloud their grief.”
For a full week a vast numbers of mourners, rich and poor alike, tarried to grieve with the bereaved family, partaking day and night of the food that was lavishly dispensed by its members. Notables, among whom were numbered Shi'ahs, Sunnis, Christians, Jews and Druzes, as well as poets, 'ulumas and government officials, all joined in lamenting the loss, and in magnifying the virtues and the greatness of Baha'u'llah, many of them paying to Him their written tributes, in verse and in prose, in both Arabic and Turkish. From cities as far afield as Damascus, Aleppo, Beirut and Cairo similar tributes were received. These glowing testimonials were, without exception, submitted to 'Abdu'l-Bahá, who now represented the Cause of the departed Leader, and Whose praises were often mingled in these eulogies with the homage paid to His Father. And yet these effusive manifestations of sorrow and expressions of praise and of admiration, which the ascension of Bahá’u’lláh had spontaneously evoked among the unbelievers in the Holy Land and the adjoining countries, were but a drop when compared with the ocean of grief and the innumerable evidences of unbounded devotion which, at the hour of the setting of the Sun of Truth, poured forth from the hearts of the countless thousands who had espoused His Cause; and were determined to carry aloft its banner in Persia, India, Russia, 'Iraq, Turkey, Palestine, Egypt and Syria.
Days to Remember - compiled by Baher Forghani. Bahá'í Publications Australia, 1983
Other resources: The Tablet of Visitation
Featured photo: Mansion of Bahjí and surrounding gardens. Source of photos: http://www.bahaipictures.com/
