There it is again — an ominous crisis looms on the horizon, perhaps real, perhaps imaginary, but whatever it is, fear starts to take over my thoughts and peace of mind. 

Today, I’m waiting on important medical scan results. Fear starts to percolate in my stomach, making it hard to reason, then I remember — whatever causes fear can only be remedied by one thing.

The Baha’i teachings say, plain and simple, that our fears can be healed by the remembrance of God. 

One of the most recited and well-known prayers in the Baha’i Faith is: “Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy.” 

RELATED: Harnessing the Power of Thought for Healing

For me, remembering God means recounting all the wisdom and loving counsels He has given us from the sacred writings of His messengers. Baha’u’llah wrote that “Whatever decreaseth fear increaseth courage.” So here are some of the Baha’i texts, poetry, and loving counsels that have helped me to decrease my fears and increase my courage through the most extreme of my difficulties and despair. 

Hold Space for the Fear

Fear has a voice, I’ve learned, and cannot just be dismissed. All of our feelings want to be heard. Lying in bed in the middle of the night, my fear can take on colossal proportions. After four hours of ruminating in the dark, I realized that my fear wasn’t just going to get up and go away. It needed space to be heard and empathized with, so I began to speak to it, as if it were my inner child: “I know you are just trying to protect me. What can I do to comfort and help you to move through this agitation into calm?” I asked. 

“I’m so afraid because I don’t know what’s coming. I feel so alone. Has God forgotten about me?” she responds.

Listening to that inner child and allowing her to experience her feelings, excessive as they were, and validating the fear rather than just trying to bury it, helps to ease the panic. At that point, I am able to start to access all the guidance and wisdom that I know will help me slowly move through this process to a place of relief. I remind my inner child of what has served us so well in the past, as I tell her we must:

 Rely upon God and Trust in Him

Baha’u’llah wrote: “The source of all good is trust in God, submission unto His command, and contentment with His holy will and pleasure.” Abdu’l-Baha also advised us to:

Rely upon God. Trust in Him. Praise Him, and call Him continually to mind. He verily turneth trouble into ease, and sorrow into solace, and toil into utter peace. He verily hath dominion over all things. If thou wouldst hearken to my words, release thyself from the fetters of whatsoever cometh to pass. Nay rather, under all conditions thank thou thy loving Lord, and yield up thine affairs unto His Will that worketh as He pleaseth. This verily is better for thee than all else, in either world. 

RELATED: Overcoming Adversity by Building Resiliency

I love this quote because I am asked to remember God. He so lovingly calls me to release the fears of whatever I perceive as a threat and instead advises me to give them up to His will because this is what is best for me. Not only am I to trust that everything will be okay, but He takes it another step and says that I should also be grateful. Why be grateful? Because this test serves to strengthen my spiritual evolution, according to this passage from the writings of the Bab:

I know of a certainty, by virtue of my love for Thee, that Thou wilt never cause tribulations to befall any soul unless Thou desirest to exalt his station in Thy celestial Paradise and to buttress his heart in this earthly life with the bulwark of Thine all-compelling power, that it may not become inclined toward the vanities of this world. 

This teaches us to:

Surrender Control to God

I’ve learned, by applying these principles, that God can transmute any situation which causes me fear. My part involves praying for assistance and then believing in the best possible outcome. When I’m having trouble trusting because life seems particularly bleak, it helps to realize that, whether I submit to God’s will or not does not change the situation. God’s will will be done, so I may as well trust, find consolation, and let go! Abdu’l-Baha said it this way:

O thou who art turning thy face towards God! Close thine eyes to all things else, and open them to the realm of the All-Glorious. Ask whatsoever thou wishest of Him alone; seek whatsoever thou seekest from Him alone. With a look He granteth a hundred thousand hopes, with a glance He healeth a hundred thousand incurable ills, with a nod He layeth balm on every wound, with a glimpse He freeth the hearts from the shackles of grief. He doeth as He doeth, and what recourse have we? He carrieth out His Will, He ordaineth what He pleaseth. Then better for thee to bow down thy head in submission, and put thy trust in the All-Merciful Lord. 

The purpose of the occasion was, according to Shoghi Effendi, to implement the revelation of the Bab by a sudden, complete, and dramatic break with Islam—“with its order, its ecclesiasticism, its traditions, and ceremonials.” – God Passes By, p. 31.

In order to act out this transition metaphorically, Baha’u’llah rented three gardens—one for himself, one for the Bab’s follower Quddus, and a third for the famous Babi poet Tahirih. According to a prearranged plan, Quddus and Tahirih publicly quarreled during the conference, Quddus advocating a conservative view that the followers of the Bab not dissociate themselves from the religion of Islam, and Tahirih asserting that the Babi movement was a new revelation and urging the Babis to break with Islam:

It was Baha’u’llah Who steadily, unerringly, yet unsuspectedly, steered the course of that memorable episode, and it was Baha’u’llah Who brought the meeting to its final and dramatic climax. One day in His presence, when illness had confined Him to bed, Tahirih, regarded as the fair and spotless emblem of chastity and the incarnation of the holy Fatimih, appeared suddenly, adorned yet unveiled, before the assembled companions, seated herself on the right hand of the affrighted and infuriated Quddus, and tearing through her fiery words the veils guarding the sanctity of the ordinances of Islam, sounded the clarion-call, and proclaimed the inauguration, of a new Dispensation. – Ibid., p. 32.

This dramatic event (watch a video on the history of Tahirih and the Conference of Badasht) no doubt had many metaphorical meanings, not the least of which was a transition from one “garden” (Islam) to a completely new “garden” (the Babi revelation). We may also find symbolic value in the fact that Baha’u’llah occupied a third “garden”—possibly a symbol of his own revelation, in the same way that one of the Hidden Words employs a garden image to represent that revelation:

Proclaim unto the children of assurance that within the realms of holiness, nigh unto the celestial paradise, a new garden hath appeared, round which circle the denizens of the realm on high and the immortal dwellers of the exalted paradise. – Baha’u’llah, The Hidden Words, p. 27.

Not all the actions of the messengers of God and their followers are so clearly symbolic or metaphorical, though one can hardly ignore the overall dramatic and metaphorical tenor of the early years of the Baha’i Faith. But, strictly speaking, all the actions of the manifestation demonstrate God’s love for man through dramatic physical expression.

Possibly the most obvious use of metaphor as a teaching device by the messengers is in their use of language. Whether it is in the form of the allegorical myths of the Old Testament, the parables of Christ, or the exquisite poetic imagery of Baha’u’llah’s verses, the language of the prophets relies on figures drawn from the phenomenal world in order to translate abstract concepts into terms that humanity can more readily understand. To render a comparative analysis of the types of imagery used by the successive manifestations would require countless volumes, but several general observations will be sufficient for our purposes to demonstrate how essential metaphor is in the language of these teachers.

As Baha’u’llah explains in The Book of Certitude, the manifestations of God do not always use language that is veiled, allusive, or metaphorical. The type of language they employ depends on the purposes of the work and the exigencies of the situation:

It is evident unto thee that the Birds of Heaven and Doves of Eternity speak a twofold language. One language, the outward language, is devoid of allusions, is unconcealed and unveiled; that it may be a guiding lamp and a beaconing light whereby wayfarers may attain the heights of holiness, and seekers may advance into the realm of eternal reunion. Such are the unveiled traditions and the evident verses already mentioned. The other language is veiled and concealed, so that whatever lieth hidden in the heart of the malevolent may be made manifest and their innermost being be disclosed. . . . In such utterances, the literal meaning, as generally understood by the people, is not what hath been intended. – pp. 254-255.

One illustration of Baha’u’llah’s statement might be the distinction we would make between the language with which the manifestation reveals his laws and the language with which he inspires and explains spiritual verities and attributes.

There are no exact rules about when a prophet will speak metaphorically and when he will not. As we study the Old Testament, we can only guess how literally the followers of Abraham or Moses perceived the anthropomorphic descriptions of God and the physical evidences of His intervention in the lives of the peoples of that day. But two major uses of metaphorical language seem relatively consistent, as in the revelations of Christ, Muhammad, and Baha’u’llah.

One recurring use is the portrayal of spiritual concepts. Christ employed the parable almost exclusively. Like other metaphorical devices, the parable forces the listener to participate, to decide the meaning. But being an extended analogy in the form of a story, the parable has the further advantage of working on various levels with multiple metaphoric equations. It is also able to hold the interest of the audience because on the literal level it contains a dramatic narrative.

Thus while Christ was establishing a degree of intimacy with his audience by telling a literal story that depicts characters and situations familiar to His listeners (a prodigal son, laborers in a vineyard, a merchant discovering a pearl of great worth, sowers of seed), he was also teaching his followers to think abstractly, to escape the literalism of their inherited beliefs, and to understand the spiritual or inner significance of his words. Instead of an elaborate canon of law (though he did reveal an abundance of laws as well), Christ bequeathed to his believers a treasury of memorable stories, each one of which had the capacity to challenge the most humble and the most erudite among his followers. Any seeker, the highest or the lowest, the learned as well as the untutored, could appreciate Christ’s parables in a different way. But those entrapped in their literalism could not penetrate the shell of the metaphorical lesson, neither could they grasp the figurative implications of their own Messianic teachings and thereby recognize Christ as having fulfilled the symbolic prophecies of their own scripture:

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” – Mathew 13:10-13.

Christ later told His disciples, “the hour is coming when I shall no longer speak to you in figures but tell you plainly of the Father.” – John 16:25.

Certainly Muhammad fulfills this promise in the Qur’an. He speaks openly and forthrightly about the sequence of prophets God has sent, and about how humankind has rejected each of them. As we mentioned earlier, he also blatantly chastises the Christian clergy who had distorted the teachings of Christ to imply that Christ was God incarnate, stating that Christ was no less divine because he was a prophet or apostle of God and not God Himself.

Abstract: This sacred Epistle, revealed in Arabic by the Báb during His sojourn in the land of Ṣād (Isfahán) from late September 1846 to late March 1847, responds to four questions from an unknown inquirer and ranks among the most illuminating Tablets of that period. The Báb first expounds upon the mystery of the Resurrection, unveiling its inner dimension as a timeless, ever-recurring reality renewed through every divine Manifestation. He then addresses an inquiry concerning a sanctified woman — identified by Denis MacEoin in The Sources for Early Bábí Doctrine and History as Táhirih Qurratu’l-‘Ayn — affirming that the divine Word had descended regarding her exalted station. The remaining questions concern the seeker’s spiritual condition, the call to moderation and steadfastness, and the injunction to avoid exaggeration in invoking the Divine Names. The Epistle culminates in a sublime avowal of servitude, wherein the Báb proclaims His utter submission to the Will of God. The present paper offers a provisional English rendering of the original Arabic Epistle, based on the manuscript preserved in the Iran National Bahá’í Archives (INBA), vol. 53, pp. 398–400.

O my spiritual loved ones! At a time when an ocean of trials and tribulations was surging up and flinging its waves to the heavens, when multitudes were assailing us and the tyrannical were inflicting upon us crushing wrongs — at such a time a band of individuals, intent on defaming us, allied themselves with our unkind brother, brought out a treatise that was filled with slanderous charges, and levelled accusations and calumnies against us.

In this way they alarmed and confused the government authorities, and it is obvious what the condition of this captive then became, in this dilapidated fortress, and what terrible harm and mischief was done, far worse than words can tell. In spite of everything, this homeless prisoner remained inwardly tranquil and secure, trusting in the peerless Lord, yearning for whatever afflictions might have to be encountered in the pathway of God’s love. For bolts of hate are, in our sight, but a gift of pearls from Him, and mortal poison but a healing draught.

Such was our state when a letter came to us from the American friends.^[1] They had covenanted together, so they wrote, to remain at one in all things, and the signatories one and all had pledged themselves to make sacrifices in the pathway of the love of God, thus to achieve eternal life. At the very moment when this letter was read, together with the signatures at its close, `Abdu’l-Bahá experienced a joy so vehement that no pen can describe it, and thanked God that friends have been raised up in that country who will live together in perfect harmony, in the best of fellowship, in full agreement, closely knit, united in their efforts.

The more this compact is reinforced, the happier and the better shall all things be, for it will draw unto itself the confirmations of God. If the lovers of the Lord are hoping for grace to win as their friends the Company on high, they must do all they can to strengthen this compact, for such an alliance for brotherhood and unity is even as watering the Tree of Life: it is life everlasting.

O ye lovers of God! Make firm your steps; fulfill your pledge to one another; go forth in harmony to scatter abroad the sweet savours of God’s love, and to establish His Teachings, until ye breathe a soul into the dead body of this world, and bring true healing in the physical and spiritual realms to everyone who aileth.

O ye lovers of God! The world is even as a human being who is diseased and impotent, whose eyes can see no longer, whose ears have gone deaf, all of whose powers are corroded and used up. Wherefore must the friends of God be competent physicians who, following the holy Teachings, will nurse this patient back to health. Perhaps, God willing, the world will mend, and become permanently whole, and its exhausted faculties will be restored, and its person will take on such vigour, freshness and verdancy that it will shine out with comeliness and grace.

The first remedy of all is to guide the people aright, so that they will turn themselves unto God, and listen to His counsellings, and go forth with hearing ears and seeing eyes. Once this speedily effective draught is given them, then, in accordance with the Teachings, they must be led to acquire the characteristics and the behaviour of the Concourse on high, and encouraged to seek out all the bounties of the Abhá Realm. They must cleanse their hearts from even the slightest trace of hatred and spite, and they must set about being truthful and honest, conciliatory and loving to all humankind–so that East and West will, even as two lovers, hold each other close; that hatred and hostility will perish from the earth, and universal peace be firmly rooted in their place.

O ye lovers of God! Be kind to all peoples; care for every person; do all ye can to purify the hearts and minds of men; strive ye to gladden every soul. To every meadow be a shower of grace, to every tree the water of life; be as sweet musk to the sense of humankind, and to the ailing be a fresh, restoring breeze. Be pleasing waters to all those who thirst, a careful guide to all who have lost their way; be father and mother to the orphan, be loving sons and daughters to the old, be an abundant treasure to the poor. Think ye of love and good fellowship as the delights of heaven, think ye of hostility and hatred as the torments of hell.

Indulge not your bodies with rest, but work with all your souls, and with all your hearts cry out and beg of God to grant you His succour and grace. Thus may ye make this world the Abhá Paradise, and this globe of earth the parade ground of the realm on high. If only ye exert the effort, it is certain that these splendours will shine out, these clouds of mercy will shed down their rain, these life-giving winds will rise and blow, this sweet-smelling musk will be scattered far and wide.

O ye lovers of God! Do not dwell on what is coming to pass in this holy place, and be ye in no wise alarmed. Whatsoever may happen is for the best, because affliction is but the essence of bounty, and sorrow and toil are mercy unalloyed, and anguish is peace of mind, and to make a sacrifice is to receive a gift, and whatsoever may come to pass hath issued from God’s grace.

See ye, therefore, to your own tasks: guide ye the people and educate them in the ways of `Abdu’l-Bahá. Deliver to mankind this joyous message from the Abhá Realm. Rest not, by day or night; seek ye no moment’s peace. Strive ye with all your might to bring to men’s ears these happy tidings. In your love for God and your attachment to `Abdu’l-Bahá, accept ye every tribulation, every sorrow. Endure the aggressor’s taunts, put up with the enemy’s reproaches. Follow in the footsteps of `Abdu’l-Bahá, and in the pathway of the Abhá Beauty, long at every moment to give up your lives. Shine out like the day-star, be unresting as the sea; even as the clouds of heaven, shed ye life upon field and hill, and like unto April winds, blow freshness through those human trees, and bring them to their blossoming.

1. This letter was signed by four hundred and twenty-two believers in America, and sent on 4 July 1905.

It has been my experience as a rabbi, who for over fifty years has been involved in interfaith activities, that all the spiritual leaders of the various religions espouse the principle of the oneness of God and the commonality of the human race.

All of our scriptures basically teach this belief. And yet, there seems to be a wide gap between this article of faith and our personal and communal conduct. In other words, our self-interest and our organizational interests take precedence over our care and concern for those outside our own fold, while this noble principle remains for the most part merely a fond wish.

Why is it so hard for us to be more inclusive and more accepting of others?

To answer a question of this magnitude we need to look back at the history of cultures and religions. It has been invariably a history of conflicts, many of them deadly. God in many cultures since the beginning of time has been portrayed as a warrior. People turned to their God or gods for protection from their enemies, and for victory on the battlefield. When a tribe or a nation was defeated and lost its sovereignty, its deity was no longer credible, and ceased to be worshiped.

The gods of ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome only survive in the mythologies of those cultures. It was not until the advent of monotheism that idea of the one eternal God of the Universe emerged. But even then, mainly with the spread of Christianity and Islam in all their varieties, the belief in one God did not bring about a peaceful world, as local, regional, and even world conflicts have continued to this day.

Many people today no longer believe that the human race is capable of bringing about a world of peace and harmony. While all the major religions express this wish in their liturgies, it remains just that—a wish. Perhaps someday it will happen, but that day seems far off.

Which brings me to the Baha’i Faith.

For the past several months I have been involved with Baha’i study and prayer groups, and other Baha’i activities. What I found out is that this Abrahamic faith, which is not nearly as well-known to the world as its Jewish, Christian, and Muslim predecessors, actually brings together people of all creeds and cultures, who socialize, study, and pray as though the world has finally come together in peace and harmony, a living proof that such a world is possible under the universal principles of the Baha’i Faith, which are:

• The oneness of humanity.
• Universal peace upheld by a world government.
• Independent investigation of truth.
• The common foundation of all religions.
• The essential harmony of science and religion.
• Equality of men and women.
• Elimination of prejudice of all kinds.
• Universal compulsory education.
• A spiritual solution to the economic problem.
• A universal auxiliary language.

Isn’t this what the world needs today more than ever before? Shouldn’t all religions come together and adopt these principles as a universal expression of the oneness of God and the oneness of humanity?

As a progressive Jew, I espouse these principles whole-heartedly, and I am sure all enlightened spiritual leaders of all faith systems do as well. None of us has to give up our own beliefs and traditions. We all have a rich heritage which continues to inspire and inform us, and which links us to our ancestors. We each have our own way of connecting with our personal and communal source of faith.

What the Baha’i Faith offers us, as I have found out, is not to give up who we are or who we have been, but rather a path that brings all of us together in pursuit of our common humanity and our common destiny as fellow-travelers on a small planet in a vast universe whose only hope for the future is working together as custodians of our Earth and of our common spiritual heritage:

O contending peoples and kindreds of the earth! Set your faces towards unity, and let the radiance of its light shine upon you. Gather ye together, and for the sake of God resolve to root out whatever is the source of contention amongst you. Then will the effulgence of the world’s great Luminary envelop the whole earth, and its inhabitants become the citizens of one city, and the occupants of one and the same throne… There can be no doubt whatever that the peoples of the world, of whatever race or religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one God… Cleave unto that which draweth you together and uniteth you. – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 216.

Abstract: Among the manifold Writings of the Báb that illumine the spiritual horizons of Shí‘ih Islám, there exists a brief yet profoundly mystical commentary on the ḥadíth, “Every Day is ʿĀshūrāʾ.” Though neither the circumstances of its revelation nor the identity of its recipient are known, this luminous treatise — preserved in the Iran National Bahá’í Archives, volume 67 — unveils the inner mysteries enshrined within the Day of ʿĀshūrāʾ. Transcending its historical import, the Báb discloses its eternal, archetypal significance: the martyrdom of Imám Ḥusayn as a timeless drama of divine revelation and sacrifice, eternally renewed in every age and within every soul. Through a mode of interpretation at once theosophical and apocalyptic, He portrays Ḥusayn as the imperishable Countenance of God, the axis of all days and worlds. This commentary thus stands among the Báb’s most penetrating expositions on martyrdom, divine manifestation, and the perpetual renewal of revelation. Manuscript published in the Iran National Bahá’í Archives (INBA), volume 67, pages 141–143

Among all the various inner qualities we need right now, patience probably ranks right up there near the top. I know I need it.

We can feel impatient about a host of things today, from the boredom of sheltering-in-place to being unable to freely pursue all the things we value. We could be impatient or unhappy with how the pandemic itself has been dealt with. We can impatiently miss our loved ones, our social lives, our work and our usual recreation, among the many dissatisfactions available to us at the moment. 

The Baha’i teachings call on each of us to develop the virtue of patience: “O Son of Man! For everything there is a sign. The sign of love is fortitude under My decree and patience under My trials.” – Baha’u’llah, The Hidden Words

So, to try and work through my own impatient pandemic frustrations I have taken to reading about and studying the lives of some very admirable people, who had it much, much worse.  

Let me tell you about a woman whose long life of patience and perseverance has to rank among the most enduring and noble examples ever – Bahiyyih Khanum, the daughter of Baha’u’llah, the prophet and founder of the Baha’i Faith. 

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Born in Iran in 1846, Bahiyyih Khanum was raised by Baha’u’llah and his wife Navvab in one of the wealthier families of Tehran. She spent the early years of her childhood playing in beautiful gardens with her older brother Abdu’l-Baha, and going to school where she learned Arabic, Persian and Turkish, receiving a formal education unlike most other girls during that time. She also grew up in a tradition of helping and serving others, influenced by her parents’ well-known devotion to society’s most disadvantaged people, indicated by their informal titles, “Mother and Father of the Poor.” 

The years immediately preceding and following her birth were also the first years of the Babi Faith, the millennial spiritual movement that took Persia by storm in the 1840s. Her father Baha’u’llah involved himself in that movement from the beginning through correspondence with the Bab, its founder.  

The Bab’s progressive teachings soon stirred up the entire nation, alarming the orthodox clerical leaders and the government. With their ties to power the clerics sought to extinguish this revolution of thought and faith. A wave of oppression soon washed over everyone associated with the Bab, so extreme in its violent implementation that accounts reached the chronicles of the West, especially after the Bab himself was martyred by a government firing squad in 1850. 

Because he was identified as a Babi leader, the Persian authorities imprisoned Baha’u’llah in Tehran’s notorious, “black pit,” called the Siyah-Chal, in 1852. At the same time his family was stripped of their riches and properties. Baha’u’llah’s wife and children became homeless in a single day. They did not know from one moment to the next whether Baha’u’llah would be executed, the fate so many other Babis had already faced. After four months of torturous confinement, Baha’u’llah was released and exiled to Baghdad. The family, with insufficient attire and few possessions, made the long journey on foot and by mule in the winter over snow-topped mountains to Iraq.  

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Thus began the 80 years of Bahiyyih Khanum’s remaining life, living in exile, poverty, and imprisonment. After a number of years in Baghdad, it became evident to many close to him that Baha’u’llah was the messenger of God as foretold by the Bab. His children, all under 10, recognized Baha’u’llah’s station and declared their loyalty and devotion to him. 

In 1863 Baha’u’llah announced his new Faith publicly. As his reputation for deep spiritual insight and wisdom grew and his teachings spread, people of all kinds flocked to him and adopted the progressive principles of his Faith. Despite the danger of persecution, thousands became Baha’is. Once more the Faith grew rapidly, at an alarming rate to the enemies of the Faith, who thought they had sufficiently suppressed it. Again the unfounded fears of the Persian and Turkish governments incited by the religious authorities caused them to further banish Baha’u’llah, his family and some core believers, to try to crush the Baha’i Faith. 

From Baghdad they were exiled and imprisoned three more times, the last to the prison city of Akka, in Palestine (now Israel). Considered the worst prison in the world at the time, its inhabitants were not expected to live more than a year, which made it a death sentence. His family, imprisoned with him, suffered severe hardships. However, Baha’u’llah lived 24 years there, before passing away in 1892. 

Bahiyyih Khanum and her beloved brother Abdu’l-Baha, survived as well, to be freed in their later years when the Ottoman Empire fell apart. Abdu’l-Baha, named by Baha’u’llah as his successor, became the head of his father’s Faith for the next 29 years, until his passing in 1921.

So Bahiyyih Khanum only had six years of childhood, of what we would consider a normal life. She endured her remaining eighty years while facing the greatest imaginable difficulties with a universally-acknowledged nobility, dignity and calmness. In spite of the deplorable living conditions, the frequent lack of potable water, a poverty sometimes so acute her mother had to give her a handful of flour as her sole daily sustenance, and the constant persecution by the authorities, Bahiyyih Khanum persisted patiently. She prevailed through the constant threats on Baha’u’llah’s life and the several unsuccessful attempts that were actually made. She faced the tragic death of her beloved younger brother, Mirza Midhi, while the family was imprisoned. All these and more were her lot in life.

“The Greatest Holy Leaf,” the title given to his daughter Bahiyyih Khanum by Baha’u’llah, exemplified her uncommon attitude about patience. That rare quality, developed through dire tests and trials, can best be described by reading her own advice on the subject:

“… We ought to never be known to complain or lament. It is not that we would “make the best of things” but that we may find in everything, even in calamity, the gems of enduring wisdom. We ought never be impatient. We ought be as incapable of impatience as one would be of revolt. This not being so much long-suffering as quiet awareness of the forces that operate in the hours of dark or years of waiting and inactivity. Always we ought to move with the larger rhythm, the wider sweep, towards our ultimate goal, in that complete acquiescence, that perfect chord which underlies the spirit of the Faith itself.” – Bahiyyih Khanum

I leave it to you to contemplate these powerful thoughts, and hope they give you, as they have given me, a light on how to live under difficulties.

Abstract: This article examines the activities of the Bahá’í community in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, challenging the misconception that the community has remained disengaged from societal involvement which arises from a misinterpretation of its principle of non-involvement in partisan politics. Contrary to this belief, the Bahá’í community has been actively engaged in social change through a framework rooted in its principles, which emphasize constructive resilience and non-adversarial strategies. Informed by the Bahá’í teachings, the global Bahá’í experience, and contemporary theories of social change, the community has focused on translating its spiritual principles into practical actions, particularly in community building, social action, and participation in the prevalent discourse of society. These efforts, characterized by a commitment to unity and collaboration, differ from conventional adversarial activism and demonstrate the community’s significant yet often overlooked contribution to Iranian society. Despite severe persecution, the Bahá’í community has maintained a principled engagement with social change, challenging the narrative of disengagement and highlighting its ongoing involvement in the life of the nation. (from mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/9/1149)