You are lovingly invited to attend the observance of the Ascension Bahá’u'lláh. The observance will be held on Tuesday morning, May 29 at 3:30a.m. at the Huntsville Bahá’í Center, 3209 Pulaski Pike:
3:15a.m to 3:30a.m.
Gather at the Huntsville Bahá’í Center
3:30a.m.
Program Begins
4:00a.m.
Recitation of the Tablet of Visitation
There will be tea and light refreshments following the observance.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email hsvlsa9@gmail.com or call at 256.457.8713.
For the first time, this compelling introduction to the Baha’i Faith is available in a 9 CD audio book. The stirring account of a new Messenger from God asks, “Did Another Messenger of God Appear 160 Years Ago?”
Over the years many books have been written introducing the Baha’i religion, or the Baha’i Faith, as it is widely known around the world, but God Speaks Again: An Introduction to the Baha’i Faith by Kenneth E. Bowers, is the first to place the founder of the religion—a nineteenth century Persian named Baha’u'llah—at the very heart of the story. Born to Persian nobility in the early nineteenth century, Baha’u'llah (1817-1892) seemed destined for a life of wealth and ease. Yet from an early age He showed little interest in courtly privileges, preferring to minister to the less fortunate of His native Tehran. Later, He cast aside all considerations of future material comfort by declaring His recognition of the Bab, a young man from Shiraz who claimed to be a Messenger sent by God to transform the spiritual life of humanity and to prepare the way for one who would bring an even greater revelation. His support of the Bab resulted in the loss of virtually all His worldly possessions and imprisonment in Tehran’s notorious Black Pit, where He was expected to perish amidst the appalling conditions. Instead, He received a powerful revelation from God that, together with future revelations meticulously recorded by secretaries and later authenticated by Baha’u'llah Himself, would become Baha’i scripture and form the basis for a world religion. After surviving the Black Pit, Baha’u'llah was sentenced to a series of increasingly harsh and remote exiles spanning forty years. The first exile was to Baghdad, where, in 1863, He announced that He was that Promised One foretold by the Bab and, in fact, by all the world’s religions. Accordingly, then as now, Baha’is of Christian background believe that Baha’u'llah fulfills the promise of Christ’s return. For Baha’ia of Jewish background, Baha’u'llah, a descendant of Abraham, is the appearance of the promised “Lord of Hosts.” For Baha’is of Muslim background, Baha’u'llah fulfills the promise of the Qur’an for the “Day of God” and the “Great Announcement.” This explains the book’s title, God Speaks Again. Members of the Baha’i religion believe that periodically throughout history, God has revealed Himself to humanity through Divine Messengers—among them Abraham, Zoroaster, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad—each offering fresh spiritual teachings suited for the age in which they appear. Bowers quotes extensively from Baha’u'llah’s own writings, which Baha’is regard as the most recent Divine Revelation for humankind, providing a welcome glimpse into its power and majesty. In placing the life of Baha’u'llah at the center of the story, he reveals an authentically inspiring figure and the inseparable connection between a new religion and an extraordinary human being touched by His Creator. From Baghdad, Baha’u'llah was sent to Constantinople, then Adrianople, and finally to ‘Akká, a remote outpost of the Ottoman Empire. Each exile was intended to strip Him of His influence and exterminate the young religion, yet each move had the opposite effect. His teachings about the underlying unity of the world’s religions and the inevitable emergence of a unified global civilization attracted thousands to investigate further. Today, the Baha’i Faith is the second most widespread of the world’s religions after Christianity, with a growing membership numbering some five million.
Since the 1979 revolution, when the Islamic Republic of Iran came to power, members of the Baha’i Faith, that country’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, have faced relentless state-mandated persecution. In its continuous attempt to destroy the Baha’i community the government has, for nearly thirty years, denied Baha’is the right to attend any of Iran’s universities. These unimaginable efforts were not met by violence or even opposition. Rather, in 1987, Iran’s Baha’is began conducting classes of their own. Joined by Iranians of many backgrounds, Baha’i educators slowly developed a simple and well-respected higher educational system with classes held in living rooms, kitchens and basements across the country. Thus, the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) was born.
On May 22, 2011 thirty-nine homes of BIHE instructors, administrators and students across Iran were raided by the government, the second such attack in the last two decades. Laboratories and classes were forcibly closed. Books, computers and materials were confiscated. Over a dozen collaborators were arrested. By September the number of detainees had climbed to eighty-four. In October seven educators associated with the BIHE were sentenced to four and five year prison terms. Since that time others have been given similarly harsh sentences.
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Spirit of Faith: The Human Soul is a compilation of writings and prayers that focus on the human soul and the qualities of this remarkable and unique aspect of our existence. The compilation of writings is available from the Baha’i Distribution Service.
Spiritual seekers of all faiths will relish these uplifting passages that offer a great deal of insight into the nature and significance of the human soul – a subject that has never been so extensively explored in the religious texts of the past.
This collection contains writings from Bahá’u'lláh, the Báb, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The Spirit of Faith series explores a range of topics – such as the unity of humanity, the eternal covenant of God, the promise of world peace, and much more – by taking an in-depth look at how the writings of the Bahá’í Faith view these issues. The series is designed to encourage readers of all faiths to think about spirituality, and to take time to pray and meditate on these important topics.
GENEVA — Iran’s former Baha’i leaders begin their fifth year in prison today amid an intensification of the persecution of their co-religionists.
The seven prisoners each face the bleak prospect of 16 more years in jail for crimes they did not commit. Next week also marks the first anniversary of raids on homes of Baha’is associated with an informal initiative offering higher education to community members barred from university. Nine educators later received harsh prison sentences.
The detention and conviction of these and other Baha’is is a reflection of the oppression facing all Iranians who desire freedom and the progress of their country, said the Universal House of Justice in a letter dated 11 May 2012 sent to the Baha’is of Iran.
In its message, the Universal House of Justice noted how the intensifying cruelty towards the Iranian Baha’i community is now also engulfing children. Among recent attacks, the letter highlighted the confinement in prison for a few days of a two-year old boy with his mother, the beating and burning of the hand of a school pupil by her teacher after the girl did not take part in congregational prayers and the violent abduction by officials of a mother before the eyes of her two young children.
The seven former leaders have been given the longest sentences – 20 years each – of any of the prisoners of conscience currently held in Iranian jails, Ms. Ala’i added. “Conditions are harsh with po
or food and bad sanitation and most of them have experienced significant health problems. Yet during these four years, not one of them has been granted any type of furlough – something to which a prisoner is entitled under Iranian law.”
JERUSALEM — Google on Sunday launched Street View in Israel, the US Internet giant said, putting on show streets and sites of interest from the Holy Land’s three major cities with its 360-degree street-level images.
The imagery of “Jerusalem, Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Haifa includes sites of interest such as the Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Armenian quarters of Jerusalem’s Old City, the Via Dolorosa, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Western Wall, Mount of Olives, old port of Jaffa, the Baha’i Gardens,” a Google statement said.
Street View, which was launched in 2006, lets computer users view panoramic street scenes on Google Maps and take a virtual “walk” through cities such as New York, Paris or Hong Kong.
Panoramic images are taken by cars equipped with special cameras which photograph an area while driving through the streets; the images are then processed in the US, where details such as faces and registration plates are automatically blurred before being published on Google Maps.
In August, Israel’s justice ministry gave Google the green light to start photographing the streets, but asked that Street View provide the public with a reliable way to request that further details be blurred after the images are published online.
Google said on Sunday that users would be able to ask for “additional blurring of themselves, their home or their car.”
To the images available now at Google will later add pictures of other cities and sites, including the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Tiberias, Acre (Akka) and Eilat.
On the Net:
Street View Israel: http://maps.google.com/intl/iw/help/maps/streetview/
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — Religious identification in the Islamic Republic of Iran is a multiple-choice question: Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian.
But there is no box for “other” for the 300,000 or so members of the Baha’i faith who live in Iran when they fill out government forms or work applications.
And that means, says Geoffrey Tyson of Huntsville, that Baha’is are officially barred from many professional jobs – and from studying at the colleges and universities that would prepare them for those jobs.
Geoffrey Tyson, general manager of Education Under Fire.
In fact, six professors are still in prison after their arrest in May because they dared to teach Baha’i students. They are charged with “conspiracy against national security” in order “to further the aims of the deviant sect.”
“And education is such an essential right, a basic building block of being human,” said Tyson, 27, who from his home in Huntsville is the general manager of Education Under Fire, an international organization working to protect the education rights of religious minorities in Iran. “This is not even about religious freedom so much as it is about educational equity and justice.”
The Baha’i faith was defined in the mid-1800s by the prophet Baha’u’llah, who was imprisoned and exiled for teaching a revelation that came after Mohammad’s, the equality of men and women, the unity of all religions and the possibility of world peace.
Ever since their formation around Baha’u’llah’s teachings, Baha’is have been harassed, executed, imprisoned and otherwise discriminated against in the Muslim world, especially, and sometimes, also, in the Christian world.
In 1979, members of the Revolutionary Guard raze the House of Bab, the site in Shiraz, Iran, where in 1844 Siyyid ‘Ali-Muhammad, known as the Bab, or Gateway, declared the revelation of the new prophet who would come to show that true progress lies in love and compassion, not force and coercion. Baha’is have been persecuted both under the Shah’s regime and also under the Islamic Republic. (Courtesy of Baha’i International Community)
No license for Baha’is
But life for Baha’is is particularly grim in Iran That’s where Baha’is are seen as the worst kind of heretics: Ones who have taken some of the truths of Islam and added to them the further sayings of another prophet and then also preached belief in unity of all faiths.
If you want to make someone really, really mad, it turns out, suggest that what they believe about God is not really that much more complete than what another groups believes.
Baha’is in Iran can’t get business licenses, can’t get approved to work in computing, real estate, medicine, even cosmetics or food preparation. They can’t get married and are having trouble finding a place to bury their dead. Baha’is cemeteries have been desecrated, their homes razed, the gatherings of a few friends for religious holidays deemed acts of treason.
But people getting jailed by one or the other of repressive countries around the world isn’t news, said David Hoffman, a retired real estate developer who founded Education under Fire. Hoffman and his wife, who was born in Iran, are also Baha’is.
What’s unusual about Iran’s 30-year ban on Baha’is going to college is that it unblushingly targets the right to learn of an entire group, Hoffman said.
“People get put in jail around the world all the time,” Hoffman said from his office in Florida. “The Iranian government, in their attempt to subjugate and marginalize the Baha’is have made a really big mistake messing with education because that’s something the right to which everyone will defend.”
The Education Under Fire logo.
A world of friends
Included in the defenders are Nobel Peace Prize laureates Bishop Desmond Tutu and Jose Ramos-Horta, the president of East Timor.
Their jointly-written letter pleads with the world’s academic community to call on the Iranian government to release the people they arrested in May who are leaders in the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education. The BIHE is an underground college program that has operated in Iran since 1987.
A group of intrepid professors – including both Muslims and Baha’is – organized the first classes for the BHIE, a web of house classes and online classes. Universities around the world, including Harvard University, accept credits from BIHE, making graduate school possible outside of Iran.
The parliaments of Canada and London have issued statements, Brazilians have called for an end to the policy, and a resolution about the situation is working its way through the U.S. House and Senate.
The groundswell of support since Iran’s crackdown in May has been heartening, Hoffman said – and may come in time to reverse the current emergency. Iran, he said, does consider its image around the world, and Education under Fire has mobilized objections from around the world.
“They were executing Baha’is in the 1980s,” Hoffman said. “They don’t do that anymore.”
And a similar crackdown in 1998 eased after international pressure, Tyson said.
Heroic resilience
According to updates posted at the faith’s official website, just since 2004, some 504 Baha’is have been arrested in Iran, with 95 still being held on nebulous charges of proselytizing and plotting against the government for actions as innocuous as placing flowers on the grave site of a dead relative.
To explain the situation, Hoffman, who has a background in film, has made a 30-minute documentary, which was co-sponsored by Amnesty International, to tell the stories through the voices of survivors and people working for human rights in Iran.
The film is surprisingly uplifting, Tyson said.
“The whole point is not to place Iran or Muslims in a bad light,” Tyson said. “There are Muslims and Iranians working sided-by-side in the BIHE. The point is to constrain the regulations that are seeking to suffocate an entire population of people. This is the story of resilience, and realizing the determination of a community to learn and to grow.”
Tyson, whose degree from UAH is in political science and literature, spent three years after his graduation working at the Baha’i center in Israel. It was his work there that brought him to the attention of the Education Under Fire team, which brought him on board in November.
“It’s a global movement,” Tyson said. “Our goal is to have 25,000 signatures by May.”
He expects the goal to be easily reached.
“This is an action that everybody can be part of,” he said.
The imprisonment and persecution of members of the Baha’i Faith in Iran continues, and the injustice meted out to Baha’is is being applied to others as well.
The fact that these systematic and brutal persecutions, including murder, denial of higher education, imprisonment, confiscation of property and businesses, and categorical dismissal from jobs as a fact of Baha’i existence for 167 years is in itself not new.
The reality that such persecution continues unabated in a world with such visibility through all forms of media is, sadly, the news.
Since August 2004, more than 500 members of the Baha’i Faith have been arrested in Iran for their religious beliefs. More than 200 are known to have been executed as heretics since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Indeed, so unabashed are the government and fanatical clerics in Iran that they have expanded the treatment reserved for Baha’is to others such as Youssef Nadarkhani.
He is not a Baha’i, but was arrested in October 2009 and faces a death sentence because of the crime of converting from Islam to Christianity. This is not an isolated case.
Our hope is that this letter inspires readers to tell Senators Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions to support and pass Senate Resolution 80.
And also to thank Congressman Mo Brooks for his support of House Resolution 134 so that those who are persecuting the innocent Baha’is – as well as Christians, Jews and Muslims who convert – that the eyes of the world are firmly fixed on them.
In 1979, members of the Revolutionary Guard raze the House of Bab, the site in Shiraz, Iran, where in 1844 Siyyid ‘Ali-Muhammad, known as the Bab, or Gateway, declared the revelation of the new prophet who would come to show that true progress lies in love and compassion, not force and coercion. Baha’is have been persecuted both under the Shah’s regime and also under the Islamic Republic. (Courtesy of Baha’i International Community)
The Education Under Fire logo.
