Yesterday we went to the Bahai Gardens in Haifa. We learned so much about the Bahai culture on the tour.
The gardens are so clean and perfect. All 18 terraces (above and below the golden domed shrine of the Báb) are designed in a purely aesthetic way and the layout is not religiously symbolic. It is a very pretty landscape and you also get a great view of Haifa and the port.
In the garden area on one side there are a few important buildings; the Bahai Parliament and the International Bahai Archives (you can only enter the archives if you are Bahai).
Bahai is a very new culture in the scheme of things since it is from around 200 years ago. It started with 66 people in Iran and now there are 6 million Bahai people in the world. 2 million of them live in India and none live in Israel. Israel is their holy land, but they are not allowed to live here. Even though they can’t live here, some Bahai people volunteer for a few years here. Despite the gardens being in Haifa, Akko is a very important city to the Bahai and they pray towards it.
Two important people in this religion are the Báb and the Bahá’u’lláh. The Báb is the founder of Bahai and he said he was the bearer of an important message concerning humanity. In Arabic Báb means gate, and this is the name he gave himself. One of the Báb’s persecuted followers, the Bahá’u’llah, thought he was the prophet who the Báb had announced.
The Bahai culture is really interesting. They are monotheistic, believe in all prophets (Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, etc.), have no clergy, and have no prayer space and only have individual prayer. In their culture I really like that men and women are equal. I think that Bahai is a very interesting religion and I encourage you to go learn more.
When you get to the gardens you go in (no cost) and get to look out over the gardens but I recommend going on the tour where you get to walk through the gardens and learn more information. If you are not good with stairs I would not recommend going on the tour because there are about 700 stairs.
The golden domed building is the shrine of the Báb
View of some of the gardens
International Bahai Archives
-Alexandra