… the Holy Land—the Land promised by God to Abraham,
sanctified by the Revelation of Moses, honored by the lives and labors of the
Hebrew patriarchs, judges, kings and prophets, revered as the cradle of
Christianity, and as the place where Zoroaster, according to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
testimony, had “held converse with some of the Prophets of Israel,” and
associated by Islám with the Apostle’s night-journey, through the seven
heavens, to the throne of the Almighty. Within the confines of this holy and
enviable country, “the nest of all the Prophets of God,” “the Vale of God’s
unsearchable Decree, the snow-white Spot, the Land of unfading splendor” was the
Exile of Baghdád, of Constantinople and Adrianople His Mission. “It is
difficult,” declares ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “to understand how Bahá’u’lláh could have
been obliged to leave Persia, and to pitch His tent in this Holy Land, but for
the persecution of His enemies, His banishment and exile.”
Indeed such a consummationcondemned to spend no less than a
third of the allotted span of His life, and over half of the total period of
, He assures us, had been actually prophesied “through the
tongue of the Prophets two or three thousand years before.” God, “faithful to
His promise,” had, “to some of the Prophets” “revealed and given the good news
that the ‘Lord of Hosts should be manifested in the Holy Land.’” Isaiah had, in
this connection, announced in his Book: “Get thee up into the high mountain, O
Zion that bringest good tidings; lift up thy voice with strength, O Jerusalem,
that bringest good tidings. Lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of
Judah: ‘Behold your God! Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand, and
His arm shall rule for Him.’” David, in his Psalms, had predicted: “Lift up
your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King
of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts, He is the
King of Glory.” “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. Our
God shall come, and shall not keep silence.” Amos had, likewise, foretold His
coming: “The Lord will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; and
the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall
wither.”
- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
