Windflower Translations

Introductions

Original title: unnamed

Written by Baha'u'llah: date unknown

This is a short passage written by Baha'u'llah via his amanuensis regarding Ridvan. Ridvan means 'paradise'. The Day of Ridvan is celebrated each year by Baha'is on April 21. This is the day Baha'u'llah declared that he was a manifestation of God in the garden of Ridvan. The Festival of Ridvan is celebrated from April 21 to May 2, the day Baha'u'llah left the garden.

Go to a short introduction by Juan Cole

Original title: Hur-i 'Ujab

Written by Baha'u'llah in the Baghdad period

Houri of Wonder is a poem in which Baha'u'llah extols the coming of his new revelation. As with many other tablets on this theme, Baha'u'llah uses the image of a woman of striking beauty to symbolise the overwhelming power of his revelation.

Original title: untitled

Written by Baha'u'llah in the Edirne period

The tablet of the Nightingale and the Owl is a short story, which reads much like a fairy tale.

Original title: Lawh-i Bulbulu'l-Firaq

Written by Baha'u'llah in Istanbul

In the tablet of the Nightingale of Separation, Baha'u'llah addresses the grief that he and the believers experienced when he was forced to move his residence from Baghdad to the Ottoman capital of Istanbul (Constantinople).

Original title: Ay Bulbulan

Written by Baha'u'llah in the Baghdad period

In the short poem, O Nightingales, Baha'u'llah announces to all those who are searching for their divine Beloved that their quest is at an end and they can now see him before them.

Original title: al-Qasidah al-Warqa'iyyah

Written by Baha'u'llah in Sulaymaniyyah and Baghdad

Ode of the Dove is a 127-verse poem that Baha'u'llah wrote around 1855, while he was with the Sufi dervishes in Sulaymaniyyah. The poem is accompanied by extensive notes that Baha'u'llah wrote when he returned to Baghdad in 1856. Some of these were aimed at answering criticisms the poem had received from partisans of Baha'u'llah's half-brother, Mirza Yahya.

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