"Remember My days during thy days" (Bahá’u’lláh, 'Tablet of Ahmad')

July 04, 2026

January 1953: Bahá'u'lláh’s “enforced and hurried departure…from His native land”

Bahá'u'lláh was given one month to leave the country. At the time of His release from the Siyah-Chal, He was too ill to set out on a long journey. He had no home of His own now. His house had been wrecked and pillaged, and His two wives and children had found temporary accommodation in an obscure quarter of the capital. He went to live in the house of His brother, Mirza Rida-Quli, whose wife Maryam, the sister of Bahá'u'lláh's second wife and devoted to Him, made adequate arrangements for Him to rest and recuperate (H.M. Balyuzi, ‘Baha'u'llah - The King of Glory’)

This enforced and hurried departure of Bahá'u'lláh from His native land, accompanied by some of His relatives, recalls in some of its aspects, the precipitate flight of the Holy Family into Egypt; the sudden migration of Muhammad, soon after His assumption of the prophetic office, from Mecca to Medina; the exodus of Moses, His brother and His followers from the land of their birth, in response to the Divine summons, and above all the banishment of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees to the Promised Land -- a banishment which, in the multitudinous benefits it conferred upon so many divers peoples, faiths and nations, constitutes the nearest historical approach to the incalculable blessings destined to be vouchsafed, in this day, and in future ages, to the whole human race, in direct consequence of the exile suffered by Him Whose Cause is the flower and fruit of all previous Revelations. (Shoghi Effendi, ‘God Passes By’)