On the Shiraz Prisoners: Blessed Are They Who Are Persecuted for Righteousness' Sake
Tiled niche at the Naranjestan, Shiraz
Unity 19 on Yahoo 360 has posted an update on the Shiraz prisoners.
Received May 24, 2006 8:34 P.M. PST from an Aunt of 3 of the Bahai Youth Prisoners in Shiraz:
Dearly loved friends and family, Thank you so much for your prayers and for your expressions of consolation and solidarity with the young Bahá’ís recently imprisoned in Iran. We have news to share:
Many of the prisoners have been released. Most of the rest are scheduled to be released tomorrow. A few though shall remain in prison. Azadeh’s three young nieces were released today with a group of, I believe, about 40 total. 14 more are scheduled to be released tomorrow, and 3 individuals have been singled out by the authorities to remain in prison. All those released had to have bond posted by their family (e.g., deeds for home or business).
Outside the prison today, when they were released, there was a huge traffic jam. So many family members and friends had come out with flowers and other expressions of love, that people on the street were asking what this was all about.
We had a chance to speak with Martha, Maaman and Rahil on the phone at about 2:00 this afternoon. They were exhausted, but they shared a few experiences. The first thing Martha said was in English. She said it was “fun” and that she already misses being in prison.
She said all the youth (men and women separated, of course) were together singing and praying the whole time and there was an atmosphere of great spiritual joy in the place. Maaman, barely able to speak from exhaustion, said all the prayers were felt because while they were being interrogated, she felt it wasn’t her that was speaking. She felt as if Bahá’u’lláh Himself was answering all the interrogators’ questions. Rahil was exuberant.
Although she was unable to hear us well from the press of so many friends and family around her, she said that three of the five nights they were there, she dreamed we were with her in gatherings with music and dancing. The three separately asked us to thank everyone for their prayers.
Jesus said, “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” How else can we account for such a transcendent experience? But now that so many are released, we must not forget those that remain. We should stay vigilant, keeping them in our prayers, because they’ve been selected by the clergy for special attention. I’m guessing that the tests are graver for those who must face such persecution alone, once the crowd is gone.
Thank you again to all of you for everything. I know no better way to express the meaning of all of this than simply to point how it has brought so many hearts together. Warmest love and gratitude,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Unity 19 on Yahoo 360, "May 24, 2006, 40 Bahai Prisoners Released, 14 More To Be Released Tomorrow, 3 Still Remain Imprisoned "
1 comment:
being originally from iran, i feel really ashamed of this; and i know how they cover the arrest in the local papers and media in iran... and how they mark them as blasphemous, as the ones who are worth nothing but "hell"...
i'm no Baha'i, no religious at all... however, i strongly hate this type of racism in the 21st century, esp. when peace and humanity are addressed and are the matters of discussions these days.
i feel any religion gaining political power can get potentially corrupted, christanity did too; islam has as well, and it can happen to any faith and religion.
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i read many of your recent posts; the different ideas and views of Bible are exactly the real reflection of what mentioned in my blog a couple weeks ago! this fact that people get different paths and create diff. denominations and these eventually become the sources of arguements, disagreements, and in extreme cases even wars...
this phenomenon seems to be happening circularly in human's life.
with all due respect to Christianity, Ba'ahi, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, ..., i see how religion(most of idealogies) are potentially made and structured to explain any sources of disagreement in a justifing/ interpretive manner(like the way you gave a link to this idea of "I" and "am" in that verse of Bible as Jesus found himself the "Only" way to God.; to be honest with you, as i was reading it, first i remembered how our islamic books at school were full of these sorts of interpretations; second i was expecting to see some interpretations on "only", and "way" as well!)
apart from that, in a post there was this sentence quoted from Baha'ollah " one hour of thinking is comparable to...", wow i remember this was a very famous verse or remark by mohamad, repeatedly recited to us at school!!!??
there was also this issue of sexuality and homosexual which, to my surprise, is not accepted the way it is by Baha'i.
i didn't like those explanations/the article on sexuality; i don't buy it, because, before you have the chance to see what they(the environment) want from you, you know what you are expected to be or how yu are expected to behave. plus, there are so many poeple who
are born bisexual, those who categorize themselves belonging to both genders, who usually need to be transgendered...?!!!
the posts with q.'s and answers are very good... i learn about Baha'i faith this way better (BTW, why do you call it a faith and not a religion?), however, the reason you gave as to prevent Baha'i from splintering or dividing into diff. denominations can't satisfy me, cuz the time will cause it eventually anyway.. it's inevitable.
plus, i still have problem with the fact that Baha'i can't and shouldn't fight with a totaliteraian regime or a ruling system that puts illogical pressures on people for diff. reasons...! humans are part of this world, and all its events; and these events will turn out to be historical events anyway... history is not an external factor occuring on human, it's human that's makes the historic events occur. time will make those moments we live meaningful by making them sound and look past...
we can't wait till something just happens, we make them happen... so we, humans, are active players of any event when we want, when we logically feel it's the time for it, when we feel it's unfair to stay indifferent.
i was reading about human's cognition and AI; and found this:
In The Sciences of the Artificial, Simon (1981) described a situation in which an ant produced a very complex path across the terrain of a beach. A person observing only the path itself might be inclined to ascribe a great deal of intelligence to the ant. However, it turned out that the complexity of the path is really produced by the complexity of the terrain over which the ant was navigating. As Simon wrote, " An ant, viewed as a behaving system, is quite simple. The apparent complexity of its behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which it finds itself" (p. 64). Simon argued that human cognition is much the same-a few relatively simple mechanisms responding to the complexity of the knowledge that is stored in the mind. In Simon's analogy, the complex behavior of the ant maps onto human cognition, the ant's navigating mechanisms map onto basic cognitive mechanisms, and the complexity of the beach maps onto the complexity of human knowledge. here
we are active reflection of our surroundings... not separete or passive members!
i guess part of this analogy(theory) implies that we actively help make the environment we live in more complex.
sorry i wrote a lot in just one comment :D...
BTW, thanks for your comment on smoking... i can imagine how scary it can be for kids, not to mention how dangerous it is if the exposure is constant!
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