On Celebrating with the Baha'is: Baha'u'llah's Birthday Like Christmas

"Dancing and Feasting Iran 18th century CE Persian ceramic tile," uploaded on June 6, 2006 by mharrsch on flickr

Friend Jess went to a Birth of Baha'u'llah celebration. Here is part of her description. -gw

We were delighted to immediately spot a few people that we knew. We saw the sister of a woman we are in Ruhi with and it turns out that the original house party I attended in the spring was at her uncle's house and this party was being held in another one of her uncle's house. The Bahai's all seem to be interconnected! What was very interesting to me is that the party welcomed everyone- very young to quite old. The youngest party guest was a week old and was held by her very protective mother the entire evening. Bob and I were befriended by a really nice older gentleman named Gerald, who it turns out was a surgeon and is now the top cardiologist consultant for the Veterans Association in D.C. His wife had been a Baha'i for 20+ years and he just recently converted in the last few years. He was so helpful the entire evening, keeping us company, answering our questions and just being a really delightful companion.

It turns out we were celebrating Baha'u'llah's birthday! Apparently there were several house parties being held all over the Northern Virginia area and the one Naz brought us to was being held specifically for seekers of the Faith. Out of a 100 or so guests half were not Baha'is. Later on in the evening a beautiful Baha'i woman got up and spoke to the group giving a brief history of the Faith and the core tenet's that Baha'is believe in along with talking about Baha'u'llah since the party was to honor Him.

Naz told me that Baha'u'llah's birthday holds a similar significance to Christmas for Christians (obviously!) and that Baha'is usually celebrate on the Eve of the 12th. So, today is Baha'u'llah's birthday and while in years past the date slid by with no significance at all, today I really feel like it is a special day. How nice to have another special day to add to my year!

Jess, "Baha'u'llah's Birthday," Tangential Thoughts

"In celebration of the Birth of Baha'u'llah," uploaded on November 12, 2006 by frackers23 on flickr who adds: "Picture taken by David Biesack (gnuru). I borrowed it under the Creative Commons license, added the quote to it, and share the completed project here with you under the same creative commons license (as required by the photographer). Enjoy! :-) "