Ridvan- an Important Baha’i Festival
“We created a tent inside the Dallas Baha’i Center and had to take out the air conditioning vent to accommodate the height of the tent pole,” said Perry, an artist and professor of literature at the University of Texas at Arlington.
For Perry, Ridvan is the most important of all Baha’i festivals. “It is most profound Festival, celebrating the holiest being that ever lived – Baha’u’llah. His name means ‘The Glory of God’,” she said.
The 12-day Baha’i festival started April 20 this year at sunset. Baha’is all over the world commemorate Baha’u’llah’s declaration of his mission to the world in 1863. There are no set rules. Each does what he feels is the best way to remember their prophet.
Perry, who converted to the Baha’i faith when she was 19, said as an artist she chose to serve the faith through drama and other art forms. “The Baha’i writings state, ‘All art is a gift of the holy spirit,’ and ‘The stage will be the pulpit of the future.’ Hence I was inspired to use my gifts to uplift the community through holy day programs – Ridvan especially,” she said.
The scale of Perry’s pageants has varied from being held at someone’s garden for just a few people to being organized at Dallas Nature Center in 1998 where 700 people attended. This year Perry, a former liberal Presbyterian, organized a large scale program on April 29, the 9th day of Ridvan in addition to two programs on April 21.
The first drama took weeks to prepare. Around 80 people attended Perry’s first performance. “The Baha’is weren’t used to such elaborate holy days. But they were overcome with emotion when hearing the music and experiencing the sacred writings being read dramatically. Many people wept,” she said in an email.
Ridvan means paradise in Persian. Perry Productions’ Ridvan pageant had Perry and her husband Tim working together to turn their favorite festival into a passion play. Perry plays with symbols, fragrance and sounds to transport her audience to the garden in Baghdad where Baha’u’llah stayed for 12 days before leaving Iraq for Istanbul where he had been banished to.
The first, ninth and the twelfth days are most important and all Baha’is are directed to take off from work on these days to pray, get together and remember their prophet. On the first day, Baha’u’llah declared he was the chosen one to his family. On the ninth day, he announced his mission to his friends and the world and on the 12th day, he left Iraq because the authorities feared his growing influence.
Roses are of special significance as the prophet distributed them to the people who came to him to pass them to the Arabs and Muslims in the nearby villages. The gardeners used to pile the roses in front of Baha’u’llah’s tent in the morning, poet Nabil said in his account of the 12 days at the garden.
Perry uses rose-water scent to recreate the moments. “I embellish the holy day to the highest artistic expression possible. I want to spiritually intoxicate the peopleâÂ?¦to transport them to the time and place so that they feel it,” she said. “Art uses metaphor, symbolism, and tangible things such as color, light, props, and costumes. It enhances the spiritual experience.”
The story of the roses and the nightingale is the most important. The historian Nabil said Baha’u’llah walked in the garden and said how great was the love of the nightingales for the roses that the birds kept awake all night to commune with the object of their admiration. Both are symbols of majesty and of god, said Perry.
Ellen Price, assistant director at the office of communications, The Baha’i National Center, Evanston, IL, said she would decorate her house with roses. “This is a happy time for us. It is the time to get together with the community,” she said. Since the Baha’i House of Worship is located at Wilmette, IL, the community members will go to the temple and pray. “We don’t have any rituals. Each comes up with his own,” she said.
Ridvan is also a time for reflection for many. For Mano Timajchy, an Iranian who lives in Syracuse, Ridvan is a time to remember the Baha’is, who were and are persecuted in Iran for following the Baha’I faith. “I don’t anything special. I will think about them. They (Baha’is) are being persecuted. Baha’i youth can’t attend universities. They don’t knowâÂ?¦they have no resources,” he said.
The faith, an offshoot of the Shia sect of Islam, sprang from the Babi movement in Persia that began in 1844 when Mirza Ali Mohammed, the Bab, proclaimed that a new prophet would soon appear to supersede Prophet Mohamed. The Bab was executed in 1850. Shiite Muslims, Iran’s dominant sect, have always denounced the Baha’i faith as a heresy. In 1863, a disciple of Bab, named Mirza Husayn Ali announced himself as the expected prophet and took the name Baha’u’llah. His followers became known as Bahai’s.
Ron Cher Hort-Fortin said the Baha’is are considered as apostate Muslims in Iran and have been persecuted for following Baha’u’llah. Many followers moved to India, United States and other countries to escape persecution.
Many Baha’is came as refugees to Syracuse and Central New York sponsored by the Catholic Church’s Refugee Resettlement Program. After Iran became an Islamic state, many Baha’is were persecuted and their shrines demolished. Many went to India, some came to United States. The largest population of Baha’is in United States is in Atlanta.
This is also a time when Baha’is elect their local assembly representatives. There is no clergy and followers are entrusted with responsibilities such as organizing meetings and celebrating festivals together so that everyone comes together. Where the community is small, members meet at someone’s house. It usually depends on the host to choose the prayers or the readings from the history.
If there are more than nine Baha’is in a city, they have a local assembly. Members volunteer to host Ridvan dinners and inform each other through emails. Ron Cher Hort-Fortin is one of them.
Hort-Fortin was excited. At 8 a.m., after a 12-hour shift at the Crouse Hospital, where he is a nurse, he was planning for the ninth day of Ridvan when he will host a meeting at his house. I met him at a breakfast place at 8 a.m. just after his shift. He marked out important dates and notes down little reminders in his red notebook.
He wanted to make it a unique experience and like Anne Perry he wanted to recreate moments from history. He said he would direct a small skit where nine children will chant, pray and enact certain scenes such as the crossing of the river by the prophet, which are important to the followers.
Blue sheets would become the river that the Baha’i prophet crossed in order to get to the Najibiyyih garden, a bouquet of roses the garden that he lived in for 12 days before leaving the country, and a fez, with a turban around it, will symbolize Baha’u’llah. The followers are prohibited to portray their prophet so they do it through symbols like the fez.
“The older children will do a reading accompanied by a spot light on the taj (the fez). Baha’u’llah began to wear the taj as a mark of his charge,” he said.
Hort-Fortin, who converted to the faith around 30 years ago, said he was attracted by the sense of security in the faith.
“Never at any time has the creator left the creation without any prophet,” he said.
Hort-Fortin, who lived in Atlanta before moving to Syracuse five years ago, said he missed the scale of the Baha’i community in Atlanta but liked the intimacy here. There are around 45 Baha’is in Syracuse and neighboring areas.
Hort-Fortin said at least 30 people would turn up at his house. He will make Baklavas, a dessert made of walnuts and honey or rose syrup, and some rice dish.
“I may do a lunch since it is a Saturday,” he said.
