Holy Days

Declaration of the Bab

Source:Star of the West Volume 1 – (Aug. 1, 1910) Isma No. 8

On the day of the annual celebration of the Bab’s Declaration, held on Mount Carmel, when representatives of all different religions, such as Jewish, Zoroastrian, Christian and Mohammedan Baha’is were seated around the table and Abdul-Baha was serving them all personally:

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“There are different gatherings and various meetings held in the world which apparently are in the utmost degree of arrangement and order; in the palaces of the kings many feasts and banquets are held which are incomparable and peerless; also, in the castles of the opulent ones great entertainments are presented and various kinds of foods and victuals are served; the singing of melodious tunes and playing of musical instruments exhilarate and deeply affect the concourse. Associations for political affairs are formed and convivial banquets for pleasure and gratification are offered; assemblages for exhibition of arts and sciences, literature and acquirements are established; meetings for the promotion of industry and commercial matters are being held; extraordinary conventions and religious congresses are arranged. But all these assemblages and different gatherings are not to be compared with and equal to this, our meeting. Although from those gatherings and conferences certain results and effects are produced which render great service to the human world and make mankind progress and develop on the plane of civilization, promulgate the attributes and virtues of the world of humanity; yet the results are limited, the fruits thereof are finite and the signs are bounded; whereas the traces, the lights and the results of this gathering are unlimited, boundless and infinite, for it is held on the Supreme Spot (the Tomb of the Bab) and under the shadow of the Blessed Beauty.

“This feast is one eternal! It has connection with and relation to the soul and body; it shall be continued everlastingly. At least an hundred thousand feasts shall follow this one. All the other gatherings shall be forgotten, whereas the commemoration and celebration of this meeting shall remain and be duly observed forever throughout endless ages; it is under the merciful glances of the Blessed Beauty.

“Once His Holiness Christ gathered the disciples together, and having offered to them the Lord’s Supper, He advised them, admonished them and uttered certain teachings to them, and then He said this was ‘The Lord’s Supper.’ Now, as this meeting is held under the shadow of the Blessed Beauty, it should be called ‘The Lord’s Sustenance,’ and as the consequences of ‘The Lord’s Supper’ continued until the present time, so we hope that the results and effects of this ‘Lord’s Sustenance’ may also become permanent and perpetual. In fact, there is no meeting better than this, for it is held in the vicinity of the Supreme Spot and the faces are so brilliant and radiant! What is there superior to this?”