Garden at Baha'i Temple

In class on Wednesday, I mentioned that when I visited the Bahai temple in Haifa, Israel, visitors were not allowed to walk through the entire garden. There was a certain fence that we were allowed to go up to (and not past), and could only look down the slope (the temple is at the bottom of a big hill and the gardens are above it) into the rest of the gardens rather than walking through the many paths. I knew this restriction was not always in place because my mom had been to this temple years before and was able to walk through the entire garden. I didn't have a good answer in class of why this restriction was in place, besides "vandalism" which I vaguely remember hearing when I was there. I think there was also a security check point before we were able to go into the little section of garden/ viewing area (but security check points are all over Israel so that wasn't out of the norm).

I wanted a better answer than just "vandalism"- and I think I found one. An article,"Haifa's Baha'i temple - a tempting target for Hizbullah?" from JPost, or The Jerusalem Post, from July 21 2006, states that: "Fear of missiles has forced the Bahais to close their beautiful gardens in Haifa to visitors. "We don't want to risk the lives of our gardeners, our guides and, of course, our visitors."

But that is just a small quote and small point from an article on a very serious topic. The article talks about the violence against the Baha'i caused by Shi'ite Muslims. This shows that the persecution that occurred to Baha'ullah and other Bahais in the early days of the religion is still going on today. A quote from the article describes the hatred for the Bahais:

' "Shi'ites consider a Baha'i an apostate who can be killed for nothing," said Lincoln (secretary general of Baha'i international community). "There are 350,000 Baha'i in Iran. They are excluded from higher education, including the last year of high school. If a Baha'i is killed in a traffic accident he is ineligible for compensation, because a Baha'i's life is worthless." Members of the Baha'i community have been persecuted, and sometimes killed over the years by Muslims, especially by Shi'ites.'

Although there is hostility towards the Baha'i, members of the faith still view life with optimism, as the article states and from the information I gathered from Baha'u'llah's biography. Lincoln states in the article that:

" Baha'i believe in the basic unity of all peoples and that the world is heading toward more oneness and the disintegration of borders and prejudices. But this unity and peace will not float down from the sky in a magical way. It has to take root in the hearts and conscience of people," he said".

JPost Homepage

Terraces of Baha'i Faith/ Hanging Gardens of Haifa