Naw-Ruz this year marks centenary of
entombment of the Bab
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HAIFA,
Israel 18 March 2009— On March 21, Baha'is
around the world will mark Naw-Ruz - their new
year - a date that this year coincides with the
100th anniversary of the interment of the
remains of the Bab on Mount Carmel.
On
Naw-Ruz in 1909, 'Abdu'l-Baha, then the head of
the Baha'i Faith, laid to rest the mortal
remains of the Bab. 'Abdu'l-Baha personally
placed the precious trust in its place in a
building he had had constructed on Mount Carmel
in Haifa.
The
original structure was later surrounded by a
formal colonnade and crowned with a golden dome
to make it a fitting burial site for the Bab,
the first of two Messengers of God associated
with the Baha'i Faith. |
The Shrine of the
Bab on Mount Carmel as it appeared in 1909, the
year His remains were laid to their final rest.
(Photo copyright Baha'i World Centre)
|
Both lived
in the 19th century, with the Bab's mission being to
announce the imminent coming of Baha'u'llah, considered
by Baha'is the long-awaited promised one of all
religions.
The Bab was
executed in the public square in Tabriz, Persia (now
Iran), in 1850, and His remains were hidden in that
country for nearly 50 years until being secretly brought
to the Holy Land and hidden another decade before being
laid to their final rest.
Baha'u'llah
was also from Persia but was banished from His native
land and eventually exiled to the Acre-Haifa area.
Before His passing in 1892, Baha'u'llah gave
instructions to 'Abdu'l-Baha to have the remains of the
Bab brought from Persia and interred at a specific site
on Mount Carmel.
'Abdu'l-Baha
thus arranged for the purchase of the land; the building
of an adequate structure for the interment; and a road
to the site on what at that time was still a rough,
undeveloped mountainside. The Baha'is of Rangoon, Burma,
sent a sarcophagus to use for the entombment.
The
circumstances of that significant event 100 years ago
are described in the Baha'i history "God Passes
By":
"'Abdu'l-Baha
had the marble sarcophagus transported with great labor
to the vault prepared for it, and in the evening, by the
light of a single lamp, he laid within it, with his own
hands - in the presence of believers from the East and
from the West and in circumstances at once solemn and
moving - the wooden casket containing the sacred remains
of the Bab. ..."
