My Iran

So, the past few weeks have been intense in Iran. Iranians around the world have been watching with agony while thousands of their brothers and sisters have been beaten and killed on the streets. If there is one positive thing that came out of this, though, it’s that the youth in Iran showed their bravery, open-mindedness and their unfulfilled desire to choose their own destiny.

I thought I would share a few quotes in the Baha’i writing about Iran. More than 160 years ago, Baha’u'llah envisioned a great future for Iran. He warned of horrible times of oppression but said that the distant future of Iran is bright. I couldn’t find all of them in English so some of them will only be in Farsi.

حضرت عبدالبهاء میفرمایند: ایران مرکز انوار گردد. این خاک تابناک شود و این کشور منوّر گردد و این بی نام و نشان شهیر آفاق شود و این محروم محرم آرزو و آمال و این بی بهره و نصیب فیض موفور یابد و امتیاز جوید و سرافراز گردد.

حضرت عبدالبهاء میفرمایند: … خیر عموم خواهیم و ترقّی جمهور، و به عالم آداب و اخلاق ایران خدمت می کنیم، و شب و روز می کوشیم که خدا یک روح جدیدی در جسم ایران بدمد تا یک قوّه ای خارق العاده در بنیه ایرانیان جلوه نماید.”

حضرت عبدالبهاء میفرمایند: …ولی ملاحظه خواهید کرد که به تأئید الهی ایران چنان فوران نماید که سیل جان بخشش اقالیم عالم را سبز و خرّم نماید…مشیّت الهیه تعلّق یافته و قوّه معنویه در ایران نبعان نموده. هذا امر محتوم و وعد غیر مکذوب…

“Iran shall become a focal centre of divine splendours. Her darksome soil will become luminous and her land will shine resplendent.” – Abdu’l-Baha

A Quote On Friendship

They that love beyond the World, cannot be separated by it.
Death cannot kill, what never dies.
Nor can Spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their Friendship.
If Absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but Crossing the World, as Friends do the Seas; They live in one another still.
For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is Omnipresent.
In this Divine Glass, they see Face to Face; and their Converse is Free, as well as Pure.
This is the Comfort of Friends, that though they may be said to Die, yet their Friendship and Society are, in the best Sense, ever present, because Immortal.

William Penn’s Fruits of Solitude (Part II: Union of Friends)

An amazing song by a group called Playing for Change

www.playingforchange.com

Previous Post

“I want to be a doctor when I grow up so that I can have a lot of money and buy chicken and fruit any time I want.” -6 year old Hussein

By Natalia Antelava
BBC News, Amman

The boy looked like an old man. His lips moved slowly, trying to stretch against his inflexible, badly scarred skin, and bandages covered his eyes.

But the voice that came out of his disfigured face was loud and cheerful and it filled the hospital room.

“I want to go back to Iraq, I miss my dad,” Hussein said.

Six years ago, when Hussein was 11 months old, his grandmother took him along to a market near their house in Baghdad.

That day the market was ripped apart by a car bomb explosion, hours later Hussein was found, badly injured, next to his grandmother’s body.

After several failed operations, his family became certain that he’d stay disfigured for the rest of his life.

What we do is not available in Iraq not because of the lack of skill, but lack of resources and security Anonymous, surgeon

But a few months ago his mother heard about a free clinic in Jordan where doctors could restore the damaged tissue on Hussein’s head.

It was only on the operating table in Amman, as Hussein was put under anaesthetic, that surgeons discovered that something else was wrong – the boy could not close his eyes.

“Because his skin is so stretched, he could not shut his eyes. That is very dangerous and could lead to blindness. So we operated on his eyes instead,” Hussein’s doctor says.

Dr Nagham Hussein, who is Iraqi herself, says she is not surprised that despite multiple surgeries no-one in Baghdad noticed Hussein’s serious chronic condition.

“Doctors in Iraq are too busy saving lives. This kind of surgery is a luxury,” she says.

Read the rest of the article…

Update On Human Rights Violations in Iran

Amnesty International continues to document serious human violations including detention of human rights defenders and other prisoners of conscience, unfair trials, torture and mistreatment in detention, deaths in custody and the application of the death penalty. Iran has one of the highest number of recorded executions of any country in the world. Amnesty International is particularly concerned about the execution of children and individuals who were minors when their crimes were alleged to have taken place. Continue…

A website reporting on the situation of the Baha’is in Iran

www.iranpresswatch.org

British prime minister sends Ridvan message to Baha’is

http://news.bahai.org/story/710

24 April 2009