smkolins
Bahá'í
"The twelfth day was appointed for departure. The garden was filled with people coming for final farewells. It was late afternoon before the party got underway. Baha'u'llah mounted a fine roan stallion named Sa`udi (he also had two others, named Sa`id and Farangi), and the party left the garden amidst displays of affection and grief. The party travelled as far as Firayjat, three miles up the Tigris. There they stayed in a borrowed garden for a week while Baha'u'llah's brother Mirza Musa completed dealing with their affairs in Baghdad and packing the remaining goods. Visitors still came daily. The party finally set out on 9 May for the three-month journey to Istanbul.....
The three announcements. In a tablet written some years later Baha'u'llah states that three announcements were made on the first day of Ridvan. First, Baha'u'llah's followers were forbidden to fight to advance or defend their faith. Religious war (jihad) had been permitted in Islam and under certain conditions by the law of the Bab. Second, there would not be another prophet for a full thousand years. Third, at that moment all the names of God were fully manifest in all things. These are perhaps to be regarded as an oblique announcement of his own prophethood. The first two anticipate basic features of Baha'i law recorded in the Kitab-i-Aqdas.
The third announcement is echoed in many passages from tablets related to Ridvan - for example: "He Who is the Desire of all nations hath shed upon the kingdoms of the unseen and of the seen the splendor of the light of His most excellent names, and enveloped them with the radiance of the luminaries of His most gracious favors - favors which none can reckon except Him." Thus, Baha'u'llah's arrival in Ridvan marks a mystic transformation of the world, in which the entire creation is infused with the glory of God's names. His announcement can, therefore, be viewed less as the revealing of a secret to a few individuals than as a fundamental transformation in the relationship between God and the world."
A more extended commentary can be found at Baha'i Library
The three announcements. In a tablet written some years later Baha'u'llah states that three announcements were made on the first day of Ridvan. First, Baha'u'llah's followers were forbidden to fight to advance or defend their faith. Religious war (jihad) had been permitted in Islam and under certain conditions by the law of the Bab. Second, there would not be another prophet for a full thousand years. Third, at that moment all the names of God were fully manifest in all things. These are perhaps to be regarded as an oblique announcement of his own prophethood. The first two anticipate basic features of Baha'i law recorded in the Kitab-i-Aqdas.
The third announcement is echoed in many passages from tablets related to Ridvan - for example: "He Who is the Desire of all nations hath shed upon the kingdoms of the unseen and of the seen the splendor of the light of His most excellent names, and enveloped them with the radiance of the luminaries of His most gracious favors - favors which none can reckon except Him." Thus, Baha'u'llah's arrival in Ridvan marks a mystic transformation of the world, in which the entire creation is infused with the glory of God's names. His announcement can, therefore, be viewed less as the revealing of a secret to a few individuals than as a fundamental transformation in the relationship between God and the world."
A more extended commentary can be found at Baha'i Library
