[Video] Who is Bahá’u’lláh?
Over the course of His lifetime, Bahá’u’lláh endured imprisonment, brutal torture, exile on foot in the dead of winter, and multiple assassination attempts. Throughout these trials, He wrote over a hundred volumes of scripture and twenty thousand letters, detailing social and spiritual teachings that prescribed freedom from racial prejudice, the equality of women and men, harmony between science and religion, and the balancing of extremes of wealth and poverty.
“O ye Rich Ones on Earth! The poor in your midst are My trust, guard ye My trust.”
Born into a Persian noble family in 1817, Bahá’u’lláh was recognized in childhood as having wisdom beyond His years. By early adulthood He had declined a position in the court of the Shah and become known as the Father of the Poor for the loving care He showed to the impoverished masses of Tehran.
Then everything changed.
One night, Bahá’u’lláh received a hand-written letter from Báb, the Leader of a nascent messianic faith heralding a Promised One Whose arrival was imminent. Bahá’u’lláh immediately accepted the new Faith and quickly became one of its foremost proponents.
As persecution of the Báb’s followers, known as Bábis, intensified throughout Iran, Bahá’u’lláh comforted those who had been imprisoned or tortured, giving them food, clothing and money. He physically protected men and women from angry mobs, sheltered them in His home and interceded on their behalf before the Shah.
Eventually, however, He lost favor with the Shah and became a target. Soldiers arrived at His home and roughly pulled Him out onto the street. As He was led, bareheaded, through the streets of Tehran, His home was ransacked and His young family fled into hiding. He was taken to a dungeon famously known as the Black Pit, a vermin-infested underground jail where the worst prisoners were housed in complete darkness, ankle-deep in the filth of rapists, thieves and murderers.
A hundred-pound chain was locked around Bahá’u’lláh’s neck, leaving scars that would last the rest of His life. He was chained together with other Bábis for the next four months. In this abysmal darkness, Bahá’u’lláh received a transformative vision revealing His divine mission.
Celebrate the birth of Baha’u’llah with the Pittsburgh Baha’i community and friends on Wednesday, October 30, from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. at the Kaufman Center Elsie H. Hillman Auditorium, 1825 Centre Ave, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219. All are welcome and admission is free.
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